Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

BRITISH RAILWAYS BILL

Order for consideration read.

To be considered tomorrow.

TORQUAY MARKET BILL [Lords]

Read a Second time, and committed.

KING'S CROSS RAILWAYS BILL

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That the Promoters of the King's Cross Railways Bill may, notwithstanding anything in the Standing Orders or practice of this House, proceed with the Bill in the present Session; and the Petition for the Bill shall be deemed to have been deposited and all Standing Orders applicable thereto shall be deemed to have been complied with;
That the Bill shall be presented to the House not later than the seventh day after this day;
That there shall be deposited with the Bill a declaration signed by the Agents for the Bill, stating that the Bill is the same, in every respect, as the Bill at the last stage of its proceedings in this House in the last Session;
That the Bill shall be laid upon the Table of the House by one of the Clerks in the Private Bill Office on the next meeting of the House after the day on which the Bill has been presented and, when so laid, shall be read the first and second time (and shall be recorded in the Journal of this House as having been so read) and, having been amended by the Committee in the last Session, shall be ordered to lie upon the Table.
That no further Fees shall be charged in respect of any proceedings on the Bill in respect of which Fees have already been incurred during the last Session.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Hon. Members: Object.

To be considered on Monday 25 November at Seven o'clock.

Oral Answers to Questions — DEFENCE

Royal Air Force

Mrs. Mahon: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what he plans to do with the aircraft taken from the front-line strength of the Royal Air Force under "Options for Change".

The Minister of State for Defence Procurement (Mr. Alan Clark): Some will be used in fleet management or as long-term reserve; others will be disposed of.

Mrs. Mahon: Will the Minister give a categorical assurance that surplus aircraft will not be supplied to the

evil dictator of Indonesia? Will the discussions between the Secretary of State and that dictator on 19 September about military co-operation now be ended in view of last week's massacre in illegally occupied East Timor?

Mr. Clark: I know that the hon. Lady would like to get rid of every aircraft in the Royal Air Force if she could. However, that view is not shared by the House or, I believe, by the hon. Lady's management committee. All export controls of armaments and all our customers are subject to the most rigorous control and scrutiny, as she knows. I certainly do not intend to reveal any of the discussions between my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the leader of another state, as they would have to be confidential.

Mr. Wilkinson: My right hon. Friend will know that reserve aeroplanes cannot simply be trundled out of a hangar and launched into the air. What provision is my right hon. Friend making to ensure that there will be enough reserve air and ground crews to fly and maintain those aeroplanes in an emergency?

Mr. Clark: There are three categories of readiness: one month's recovery, three months' recovery and six months' recovery. As the reduction in the strength of the Royal Air Force in terms of air frames proceeds, there will be a number of crews on whom we can call should it be necessary to reactivate those aircraft.

Trident

Mr. Mullin: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will give the total estimated annual operating costs of Trident for the first five years of operation.

The Minister of State for the Armed Forces (Mr. Archie Hamilton): We do not expect the running costs of the Trident force to be significantly different from those of Polaris.

Mr. Mullin: That is about £2 billion for the first five years. Is not it madness to be spending billions of pounds on a missile system which does not deter and may not work —and when we have no one at whom to point it? Cannot the Secretary of State think of better uses for the perhaps upwards of £20 billion which will be spent on the Trident missile system in capital and investments?

Mr. Hamilton: I am amazed that the hon. Gentleman should come out with those remarks about the deterrent in which we are investing just when his party is purporting to change its policy. Presumably he is about to resign the Whip, or something of that sort, from the Labour party in this place.
The nuclear deterrent has been very effective in ensuring the security of the west over the past 40 years. We are now left with major nuclear arsenals in Russia, the Ukraine, Byelorussia and Kazakhstan and there is great uncertainty hanging over those areas. It is a wise precaution to ensure that we continue to have the nuclear deterrent which has served us so well in the past.

Mr. Cyril D. Townsend: Does my right hon. Friend agree that Trident really is the queen of the defence chessboard and that many of us believe that the price that we have to pay for it is well worth paying? Will he confirm that there is a good argument for at least one European country having nuclear weapons?

Mr. Hamilton: Yes, indeed. Spending on defence is a way of reducing the chances of war. To that extent, the nuclear deterrent is very good value for money. I hope that the day when European defence does not rely solely on British and French deterrents will not come to pass, but there is clearly a risk that it could happen some time.

Mr. Douglas: Having made a comparison with Polaris, how does the Minister reconcile having a strategic deterrent which is primarily devoted to NATO purposes when NATO is abandoning nuclear weapons to a considerable degree and when NATO per se would have no Soviet target for Trident?

Mr. Hamilton: As the hon. Gentleman will know, NATO is not abandoning nuclear deterrents. Some ranges of nuclear weapons are being eliminated and we totally support that. All the pronouncements from NATO of late have been to the effect that we regard nuclear deterrents as an important part of the armoury of NATO forces generally.

Helicopters

Mr. Speller: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he intends to replace the Wessex helicopter used for search and rescue work with Sea King or other 24-hour capability helicopters.

Mr. Alan Clark: I hope to be in a position to make an announcement early next year.

Mr. Speller: I thank my right hon. Friend for anticipating an announcement some time next year. Is he aware that, off the north Devon coast, our search and rescue capacity is 30 minutes away at RAF Brawdy? Excellent though that capacity is, on a cold wintry night it is too far away. I hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to provide not only the extra helicopters that are needed but the extra security that is desperately needed all the way across the Bristol channel.

Mr. Clark: My hon. Friend poses several questions on the subject. I hope that they will not be interpreted as questioning the adequacy of existing services. The House will be interested to know that, in the six months since my hon. Friend last questioned me on the subject, there have been 992 call-outs from RAF Chivenor and 591 people have been assisted. I pay tribute to the RAF crews concerned and to their skill, dedication and courage, often in very difficult circumstances.

Mr. Menzies Campbell: Does the Minister understand that what he has just said underlines the public's high regard for search and rescue services provided by the Royal Air Force, particularly in a constituency such as mine, where RAF Leuchars is situated? It is well known that the Government have received an offer to privatise search and rescue services. In the light of what the Minister said and the undoubted expertise of the Royal Air Force in such matters, will he undertake that that expertise and high public regard will not be lightly thrown away?

Mr. Clark: I am grateful for what the hon. and learned Gentleman has said. Our commitment in air-sea rescue is to those at risk. We shall continue to meet the criteria laid down by the Department of Transport. What is the most cost-effective and efficient way of achieving those ends remains to be decided after proper examination.

Mr. Ian Bruce: What plans does my right hon. Friend have to continue air-sea rescue from Portland in my constituency? Does he have plans to extend operations during night time as well as day time? When is it envisaged that the new Merlin helicopter will be on site in Portland?

Mr. Clark: I have nothing to add to the present state of knowledge on plans for Portland and I have no knowledge that the EH 101 utility variant is to be used in the air-sea rescue role, at least in the predictable future.

Mr. Rogers: Does the Minister accept that the almost 1,000 call-outs in the past six months reinforce the need to keep open all our bases on the western coast and that the proposed closures of RAF Brawdy, or Chivenor in north Devon, will leave part of our western coast vulnerable during dangerous times, particularly if there is no 24-hour operability? Will the Minister look yet again at the proposed closures, especially RAF Brawdy? If that versatile base is closed there will be an enormous impact on the local economy, especially when combined with the closure of the Royal Navy base at Trecwn.

Mr. Clark: It is all very well for the hon. Gentleman to make such comments. We are all used to the hypocrisy and double standards of the Labour party, whose representatives hang around every factory gate and base saying what terrible things will happen locally. Yet nationally, as we know, it is committed—indeed, it is under instructions from its confereence—to cut defence spending by £6 billion. There will be no announcement about the bases until the new year. I repeat the undertaking that I gave to the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) a moment ago. We shall at all times continue to meet the criteria laid down by the Department of Transport.

Trident

Mr. Corbyn: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the expected date of commissioning of the first Trident nuclear submarine and the expected date of completion of the programme; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. John Marshall: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement about the progress with the Trident programme.

Mr. Alan Clark: The overall Trident programme continues to progress to time and within budget towards an in-service date of the mid-1990s. It is not our practice to make public the precise dates of submarine construction or related programmes.

Mr. Corbyn: Will the Minister confirm that the total cost of the Trident programme is likely to be over £23 billion, that it is a monstrous waste of money, that to hold nuclear weapons is immoral and that in the interests of world peace he should cancel the programme and provide useful work for the highly skilled people who have manufactured those awful weapons of mass destruction?

Mr. Clark: I am sure that it is perfectly possible for the hon. Gentleman to make a trip to Barrow-in-Furness and explain to the work force there what useful work is available for them. I welcome what he said. He articulates a view which is widely shared on the Opposition Benches, although the Labour party finds it seemly to repress it at


present. Certainly, it does no harm to ventilate that view in this place. I always welcome hearing it when it is delivered so lucidly from the mouth of the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn). I would correct the hon. Gentleman on one point of fact. The cost of the system is already £1£8 billion less than the original estimate announced in the House in 1982.

Mr. John Marshall: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his commitment to the Trident programme. Does he believe that it would be safe in the hands of Members of Parliament who continually carp and criticise? Would it be safe in the hands of a party two thirds of whose members are committed to one-sided nuclear disarmament?

Mr. Clark: This question is best answered by the remarks of the hon. Member for Islington, North, who courageously and clearly articulated the views of, I suspect, more than half the Members on the Opposition Benches.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Why did the Minister's Department authorise Admiral Sir Julian Oswald to give information to the press on the specific question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn), when Ministers continually refuse to answer that question in the House? Is not it reasonable that the House of Commons should be given the same information as is made available to the press in briefings? Does the Minister accept that it is entirely unsatisfactory to continue stonewalling on those questions while answering them in the press?

Mr. Clark: The boat will be launched early next year, but I must maintain the position that I and my predecessors have always maintained—that we do not disclose any further details in the House.

Mr. Franks: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the Government have only one policy on Trident—to build the fourth boat and complete the programme? That is unlike the Opposition, who have at least three conflicting policies—one for the Front Bench, a second for Back-Bench CND Members and, most disgraceful of all, a third for the electorate in Barrow.

Mr. Clark: That is absolutely right. I confirm what my hon. Friend says. We are interested in receiving a report of what took place when the Leader of the Oppositon went to Barrow and had a chat with the work force. He gave them several assurances, with which, apparently, they were satisfied, but the right hon. Gentleman will not give details of the assurances. That is certainly a subject on which the House would welcome further enlightenment.

Mr. Boyes: Will the Minister now acknowledge that Labour party policy is to deploy the Trident system? When will the Government place an order for the fourth Trident boat and how much money have the Government already spent on it? Does he realise that his policy of drip-feeding the yard with funding for the fourth boat is unnecessarily extending the lives of the Polaris boats and jeopardising the employment of thousands of workers at Barrow, simply to safeguard the seat of the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Franks)?

Mr. Clark: I did not entirely follow the hon. Gentleman's question. In so far as I did understand it, I welcome his commitment of the Labour party to the

Trident programme. I understood him to reproach us for being slow in commissioning the fourth vessel. If so, that is an instructive and important addition to the Labour party's nuclear policy and, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State reminds me, is a fourth arm in such a policy.

Infantry Regiments

Mr. Colvin: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the difference in cost to the Ministry of Defence of one infrantry regiment with two infantry battalions and two regiments of one battalion each.

The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Tom King): The average cost of an infantry battalion is £12·5 million to £15 million in the United Kingdom and £17 million in Germany, irrespective of how it is organised regimentally.

Mr. Colvin: I expected a reply somewhat like that. What my right hon. Friend said makes it clear that there will not be a great saving to the Ministry of Defence. If the amalgamation of the Royal Hampshire Regiment with the Queen's Regiment is part of the price of a reorganised and more efficient Army, the retention of the Royal Hampshires' name within the title of the new regiment must be part of the price of the amalgamation. Will he confirm that that would be possible?

Mr. King: I know that my hon. Friend will be fair and will recognise that the Queen's Regiment is an amalgamation of the Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment, the East Surrey Regiment, the Royal Sussex Regiment, the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment and the Middlesex Regiment. I remember seeing those regimental names on the cemetery wall at Kranji in Singapore a month ago. They were all fine regiments which had to suffer the disappointment of amalgamation. Now the Royal Hampshire Regiment faces the same challenge and I know that it and the Queen's Regiment will wish to approach amalgamation in the most sensible and realistic way in the interests of both regiments.

Mr. Kirkwood: Will the Secretary of State confirm that whatever savings the Ministry of Defence may make by the regimental amalgamations proposed in "Options for Change", there will be considerable on-costs to the public purse, through expenditure on unemployment and housing benefits? What are the Ministry of Defence estimates of the costs of that and what attempts are his Department making to cover some of those costs?

Mr. King: That is the most amazing question that I have heard in the House. The hon. Gentleman knows that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has just announced that our plans for defence expenditure involve a cut of 6 per cent. in real terms during the next three to four years. The hon. Gentleman represents a party that has called for a 50 per cent. cut in defence expenditure in real terms by the end of the decade. What impact will that have on unemployment and housing benefits and every other consideration?

Mrs. Ann Winterton: Who bears the cost of the new uniforms in any amalgamated regiment? Is it true that the Army will contribute £10 to each uniform and that officers and others will have to pay any further costs? Secondly,


what redundancy arrangements are being made for members of the amalgamated regiments who will not be needed for the defence of the nation?

Mr. King: On the first point, the usual uniform arrangements will apply as on previous occasions. I shall look into the matter that my hon. Friend has raised, because it covers a whole range of issues—resettlements and redundancy arrangements—and we are anxious that the fairest arrangements should be made.
There was a misunderstanding in my hon. Friend's question. There will be redundancies in the Army, as in every armed force of any significance in the western world, but the Army Board intends that redundancies should be spread evenly throughout the Army and that people in the regiments facing amalgamation will not be discriminated against or at a disadvantage, compared with those whose regiments may not be so affected. I hope that that is understood, because it is a very important point.

Mr. O'Neill: Now that the Secretary of State has issued the timetable for the mergers of the regiments, can he confirm that, in the unlikely event of a Conservative victory, there is no prospect of the Scottish regiments' future being reviewed?

Mr. King: I have made it clear that the decisions have been taken. We have set out the timetable. The assessments made by the defence staff establish the right shape for our defences for the 1990s. The only real risk to regiments, as against the programme that we have set out, is a change of Government. If either of the Opposition parties was elected, many of the regiments that face amalgamation now would face certain disbandment.

Mr. Mans: When my right hon. Friend considers how different regiments have merged, will he take into account, rather than discourage, the concept of the big regiment and ensure that in future the Army is organised in big regiments?

Mr. King: As my hon. Friend knows, that was considered carefully by the Army when it looked into the best way to approach the reorganisation. I cannot go further. Obviously, the Army has recognised the role of the big regiment, but the role of other regiments with a particularly strong and well-established tradition was recognised and the Army Board also took account of those sensitivities.

Arms Trade

Mr. Flynn: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what new initiatives he has to further policies of achieving transparency in the world arms trade.

Mr. Alan Clark: Following the initiative of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, the first committee of the United Nations General Assembly has adopted a resolution recommending to the assembly the establishment of a universal and non-discriminatory register of arms transfers.

Mr. Flynn: Is the Minister alarmed by the news that appeared in the New York Times last Friday of the help that China has given to Algeria and North Korea in the advanced development of their nuclear weapons and by the fact that a new arms race for conventional and nuclear weapons is roaring ahead at an unprecedented rate?
Would not the best way to advance transparency in world arms sales and achieve a United Nations register be for Britain now to declare that we shall have transparency and a register of Britain's arms sales?

Mr. Clark: I make allowances for the fact that the hon. Gentleman clearly prepared his supplementary before the news was announced. It might have been slightly more gracious of him to pay tribute to the work of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in getting this universal and non-discriminatory register of arms transfers recommended to the Assembly. I pay tribute to the work of the United Kingdom delegation. One of my officials chairs the experts committee that laid the groundwork for this achievement. On reflection, the hon. Gentleman will agree that it is far better for all nuclear powers and principal arms manufacturers to move forward together, rather than for any one to break ranks and anticipate matters.
I entirely agree that China's transfer of technology to other aspirant nuclear powers is deplorable. We must all do our best to make the non-proliferation treaty work effectively and, if necessary, give it more teeth.

Mr. Batiste: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that our friends and allies round the world who may be faced with potentially aggressive neighbours are entitled to look to us for support in arms sales, for example, of the Challenger tank which is made in Leeds, and that nothing proposed on restricting arms sales generally in the interests of world peace will prevent us from supporting our allies in circumstances where that is necessary?

Mr. Clark: Yes, of course. It is a cardinal principle of free determination that independent states have the right to determine their spending priorities. Unilateral action by the United Kingdom to stop defence sales would not stop the arms trade or bring about peace and security.

Departmental Properties

Mr. Ashton: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many houses currently owned by his Department and defence establishments are standing empty.

Mr. Archie Hamilton: As at 30 September 1991, the latest date for which figures are available, 9,966 Ministry of Defence owned houses and flats were vacant of which 9,834 were service married quarters. Many of those properties were either undergoing or awaiting major maintenance work or modernisation, some were already allotted to service families who were due to move in shortly and others were being considered for disposal. In addition, some 1,700 dwellings were in the process of being sold.

Mr. Ashton: In view of that enormous number of empty dwellings, will the Minister give an assurance that none of the 1,600 wives—and their children—whose husbands have left them will be evicted? What will happen when another 40,000 military personnel are made redundant as a result of the White Paper proposals? Will there be any evictions? Will the Minister assure the House that empty houses will be handed over to local councils or housing associations for rent either to redundant service men or to others? Will he assure the House that the empty properties will not be sold off and service personnel and their families turned onto the street?

Mr. Hamilton: We attempt to treat the wives and ex-wives of service men living illegally in some of our properties as sympathetically as we can and that is why the 1,600 to whom the hon. Gentleman referred live in service accommodation.
The figure of 40,000 redundancies is not right. For the Army we are talking about in excess of 10,000 redundancies and much of the other reductions will occur through natural wastage. A housing task force has been set up under my noble Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces and he is considering how we can use the existing housing stock to alleviate problems. In particular, he will consider the problems faced by those who come back from Germany who may be made redundant and ensure that they have somewhere to live while they are looking for a job. We are addressing that issue now. However, the number of vacant dwellings will probably increase while the running down of the Army continues.

Dame Janet Fookes: What consideration is my hon. Friend giving to the scheme put forward by the services charity, SSAFA—the Soldiers', Sailors' and Airmen's Families Association—to deal with redundant housing stock?

Mr. Hamilton: The SSAFA is in close touch with the Department at all times and we listen to what it has to say about problems associated with housing and everything else. We are listening hard to its recommendations and we take seriously the points that it makes to us.

Mr. O'Neill: We welcome the working party that has been established to deal with the housing issue. However, does the Minister recognise that there is an increasing problem of homelessness and squatting among ex-service personnel? Since the MOD housing stock is being sold off and other houses are being renovated and improved slowly, does the hon. Gentleman accept that the situation will not get better in the foreseeable future unless far greater urgency is given to the problem of properly housing and properly treating our service personnel and those whom we consider are no longer needed in our forces?

Mr. Hamilton: We are well aware of this problem and the last thing we want is ex-service men having to live in temporary accommodation. For that reason, we are making the best use of married quarters to ensure that people are not forced into such temporary accommodation.

Sir Giles Shaw: Does my hon. Friend accept that the problem raised by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) is probably the most crucial element in the redundancy programme to which my hon. Friend has referred? The priority given to resettlement through access to housing will probably be the greatest determinant of the fairness of Government policy on redundancy.

Mr. Hamilton: Yes, indeed, I accept what my hon. Friend says. There is a difficult Catch-22 situation because people cannot get a job until they have housing and they cannot get a mortgage until they have a job. Therefore, it is important that we solve the problem of where redundant people live so that they are able to get jobs, raise a

mortgage and buy their own homes. At that stage they will no longer need the married quarters that we make available to them.

Low Flying

Mr. Beith: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what recent representations he has received from farmers about compensation for the effects of low flying on livestock.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence Procurement (Mr. Kenneth Carlisle): The Ministry of Defence continues to receive representations from farmers about compensation for the effects of low flying on livestock. No more representations have been made recently than is usual.

Mr. Beith: Is the Minister aware that there is a feeling among farmers that the Ministry is being less helpful than it used to be in dealing with compensation claims arising from low flying by jets or helicopters? Does he recognise, for example, that insisting on veterinary reports may cause problems in that the examinations may cause distress to animals as well as additional cost to the farmer, who may not be compensated?

Mr. Carlisle: We try to be as helpful as possible, and I am aware of the case of Mr. Johnson in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. We require some evidence of loss, either from a vet or an accountant, and as soon as we receive the reports we look at them speedily and with sympathy. Indeed, we always try to give the benefit of the doubt, and the hon. Gentleman may be interested to know that in the last three years we have received 577 claims and have settled 372 of them.

Gulf War

Mr. Tim Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what was the total cost to the United Kingdom of the Gulf war; how much has been recovered from allied nations; and what will be final net cost to the taxpayer.

Mr. Archie Hamilton: The additional defence costs of the Gulf conflict, to be spread over several years, are currently estimated to be about £2·5 billion. The bulk of the costs are offset by cash contributions from other Governments, totalling some £2 billion.

Mr. Smith: Is it not clear from that information that not only was the Gulf war a great success in military terms, but that the financial outcome was also most satisfactory from the point of view of the United Kingdom?

Mr. Hamilton: Yes, and I suspect that it has been an almost unique experience in that so much of the cost has been provided by other Governments. We are grateful to all Governments who came forward with cash for the war.

Mr. Harry Ewing: Apart from the fact that we made a profit from the Gulf war, may I ask the Minister to say what else was achieved by it, with Saddam Hussein still in power and carrying out his evil acts and with the dictatorship still in power in Kuwait? Why were our young men sent to their deaths in such a meaningless cause?

Mr. Hamilton: I find that, from start to finish, a most incredible contribution. I thought that I had made it clear that we did not make a profit on the war. It cost £2·5


billion and we got back £2 billion, which means that it cost us £500 million, which does not look to me like a profit. The hon. Gentleman will remember—indeed, his party purported to support the action of the coalition forces—that the objective was to liberate Kuwait. That is precisely what we did.

Mr. Conway: Does the Minister accept that, from the point of view of cost effectiveness, the members of the Territorial Army and the reserve forces who served in the Gulf war were remarkably cost effective? Does he agree that that bodes well for the TA review now under way in ensuring that the TA continues to give value for money and is geographically well balanced?

Mr. Hamilton: Yes. Clearly, in the current review of the Territorial Army, we are paying great attention to the need to continue to have a good geographical spread across the country. We pay tribute to the cost effectiveness of the Territorials.

Dr. Reid: If, as the Minister says, we recouped so much money on the Gulf war, may I ask him to explain why the Ministry of Defence is being so mean and tight-fisted towards some of those who were prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice during that war? Is the Minister aware, for example, of the considerable number of Territorial Army members who served in the Gulf, including over 20 from the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Mr. McKelvey), who have been refused their bounty because they did not serve their annual camp—precisely because they were in the Gulf for over 51 days? That is a scandalous way to treat people who risked their lives and came under repeated Scud attacks for the sake of their country. Will he order an immediate review of those cases with a view to ensuring that nobody is penalised financially purely because of the bravery that they showed and the sacrifice that they were prepared to make for their country?

Mr. Hamilton: What the hon. Gentleman says about members of the Territorial Army being refused their bounty is news to me, so I should be grateful if he would write to me. Of course we shall investigate such cases. As for our being mean and tight-fisted—the hon Gentleman's words—that is certainly not the case. There were very large claims from members of the Territorial Army for loss of earnings and most of them were met in full.

Merchant Shipping

Sir John Farr: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what progress he has made in making available a pool of British-registered merchant ships for emergency defence use.

Mr. Archie Hamilton: The need for Government action to ensure that sufficient ships remain on the British register to meet defence needs is under consideration.

Sir John Farr: Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that at least one of the lessons that we learnt in the Gulf war will be put into effect so that, should a similar international crisis occur again, more than one in five of those support vessels will fly the red ensign, as was the case in the Gulf war?

Mr. Hamilton: Yes, I hear what my hon. Friend says. However, Operation Granby proved that it is possible to

go out onto the charter market for ships and find ships from many different nations to perform the tasks that we wanted of them. Although not as many red ensign ships supported our troops in the Gulf as might have, the task was carried out economically by other nations.

Mr. Wilson: Does the Minister accept that the virtual destruction of the British Merchant Navy in the past 12 years has been one of the most severe crimes committed against this country by the present Government? Does he accept that the Government are reducing to fewer than 300 ships the number of vessels that now sail under the red ensign and that they have treated with utter contempt the red ensign, which has served this country well in times of peace and war? Will the Government, extremely belatedly, redress their policies, adopt some of the measures that other western Governments take to defend their merchant fleets, and accept the absurdity of an island state devoid of a merchant navy?

Mr. Hamilton: It is emotional language to talk about the virtual destruction of the British Merchant Navy. Several British shipping companies have chosen to opt out —to flag out—and to run their ships under another organisation. In the circumstances, we are talking about a vast subsidy from taxpayers' money in some form to stop that flagging out taking place. We must discuss carefully whether that is the best way that money should be spent.

Nuclear Weapons Testing

Mr. McAvoy: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on his Department's policy of testing nuclear weapons at the Nevada test site.

Mr. Archie Hamilton: The United Kingdom carries out such tests of nuclear warheads as are necessary to maintain the effectiveness and safety of our nuclear deterrent. Tests are carried out at the United States Department of Energy's site in Nevada under the terms of the 1958 agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States. We conform to all relevant international treaties related to nuclear testing.

Mr. McAvoy: Will the Minister confirm or deny that a British nuclear test, code-named Bristol, is due to take place soon in Nevada? The House will find it difficult to understand why the country needs another nuclear test, especially when the basic technology has been tested countless times before. Does the Minister recall that last year's EC conference on those issues ended in disagreement over nuclear testing? Which is more valuable—a few more British nuclear tests or a worldwide agreement on stopping all nuclear tests?

Mr. Hamilton: As the hon. Gentleman knows, it is not general practice to confirm or deny that nuclear tests are about to take place. As for the validity of those tests, I remind him that it is important to have effective nuclear warheads, and testing is the only way to establish whether warheads are effective. Whatever the hon. Gentleman's position on nuclear weapons—like many Opposition Back Benchers, he is probably totally against them—he will agree that if we are to have them, they should operate safely. That is one of the benefits of nuclear testing.

Scottish Regiments

Mr. Salmond: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what recent representations he has received on the future of the Scottish regiments and battalions; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Tom King: I have received many such representations and I well understand the depth of feeling on the part of those expressing their concern. However, as my right hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces said in the recent defence debate, under our restructuring proposals, the proportion of Scottish units in the Army overall will increase rather than decrease.

Mr. Salmond: Will the Secretary of State specify the exact circumstances that led the Secretary of State for Transport and the Secretary of State for Scotland to give the clear impression during the Kincardine and Deeside by-election that a review of that decision was possible? Was that a collective decision by the Tory party or the Cabinet to raise false expectations or were the Ministers acting in a freelance capacity?

Mr. King: The position is precisely clear and has been confirmed. I have made it clear that we have made decisions for the future structure of the Army that will result in a higher proportion of the Army overall being drawn from Scotland—I imagine that the hon. Gentleman will welcome that. Since then we have published the timetable for the amalgamation of regiments, and it was to that fact that my right hon. Friends were perfectly fairly drawing attention.

Princess of Wales RAF Hospital

Mr. Paice: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he expects to conclude a sale of the Princess of Wales RAF hospital, Ely.

Mr. Archie Hamilton: We expect to conclude a sale of the Princess of Wales hospital at RAF Ely at the earliest opportunity commensurate with our responsibility to maximise disposal receipts.

Mr. Paice: I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply. Does he accept the view of the local district health authority that it is absolutely essential that the core facility of the hospital should be available for the district health authority to provide treatment through the NHS? Will he ensure that when considering any bids, any prospective purchases for the hospital, the needs of the health authority will be borne in mind?

Mr. Hamilton: Yes, of course, I can give my hon. Friend that undertaking. We shall continue to confer with the local health authority. We have been in touch with it about the proposed sale of the site and will continue to be.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRIME MINISTER

Engagements

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 November.

The Prime Minister (Mr. John Major): This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Has my right hon. Friend seen the excellent report of Lancaster health authority, a copy of which I sent him, showing the immense progress that it has made during the past year —all within its budget? Is he aware of the vast increase since 1979 in the number of hip operations—from 60 to 197—in knee operations—from 16 to 90—and in cataracts of 216 to 685. Is he aware that when the hospital becomes a trust it will make even more rapid progress being run by local people for local people?

The Prime Minister: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing that excellent report to my attention. I think that patients can see that the reforms are working—there are better clinic hours, with evening and out-of-hours clinics, and improvements in service and the patients' environment. Such improvements are taking place in Lancaster and elsewhere, and I have no doubt that they will continue to take place everywhere.

Mr. Kinnock: Will the Prime Minister take this opportunity to join me in expressing joy at the release of Terry Waite and Tom Sutherland from their long and terrible captivity? May I also express—as I am sure he will —boundless admiration for the great courage and inner strength shown by the two men and all the other released hostages. Those qualities were brilliantly manifested yet again in the remarkable speech by Terry Waite at RAF Lyneham at lunchtime today. Will the Prime Minister join me in thanking everyone, including the service given by the British Government, who have worked and still work to secure the release of hostages? I particularly thank the United Nations Secretary-General and his envoy, Mr. Picco. Does the Prime Minister agree that the statement by Terry Waite's captors that they now recognise that they did wrong and that what they did has served no useful purpose should be understood by all those who engage in the vile practice of taking hostages, anywhere?

The Prime Minister: I agree unreservedly with the right hon. Gentleman's comments and believe that they will be echoed throughout the country. This morning I spoke briefly to Terry Waite while he was on board the aircraft returning home and was able to express the delight that I and the whole country felt at his safe return and at Mr. Sutherland's release. We owe a great deal to the United Nations Secretary-General and to Mr. Picco who have worked tirelessly with others to secure the release of the hostages. In welcoming the release of Mr. Waite and Mr. Sutherland, may I express the hope that none of us forget that there are still more hostages whom we wish to see speedily returned to their homes. The developments that we have seen vindicate the policy of not doing deals with hostage takers. I share the right hon. Gentleman's view about the remarks by the hostage takers. Let us hope that the lesson has been learnt and that never again shall we see this vile practice recur.

Mr. Colin Shepherd: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 November.

The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the answer that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Shepherd: During his busy day, will my right hon. Friend take time to look at the Harris poll in last Sunday's issue of The Observer which clearly showed that two thirds of the people of this country, including 60 per cent. of Labour voters, support my right hon. Friend's policy of reducing the standard rate of tax from 25p to 20p in the pound? Is it not clear that at the next general election the public will face a clear choice between lower personal taxes under a Conservative Government or swingeing increased taxes under Labour?

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend certainly puts the point crisply, and I entirely agree with him. Conservatives believe that people should be left with as much as possible of their own money to spend in their own interests, in the clear belief that they will spend it better in their interests than any Government will do for them. We leave it to the Opposition to advocate higher taxes. That is not our view.

Mr. Watson: Is the Prime Minister aware that under the 1951 United Nations convention on refugees, to which this country is a signatory, all Governments are obliged to provide asylum to those fleeing from serious human rights violations? Given that the Asylum Bill will deny genuine asylum seekers entry to this country,—[HON. MEMBERS: "No".] Yes it will, and the few who slip through the net will be denied legal aid to argue their case. Will the Prime Minister tell us how his Government will meet their obligations under the convention?

The Prime Minister: The Bill introduced by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will not deter genuine asylum seekers. It will prevent the misuse of asylum procedures while protecting the position of genuine refugees. It seeks to accelerate decision making, and it will find strong support in the House and in the country.

Mr. Evennett: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 November.

The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the answer that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Evennett: Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that he will not agree to binding minimum rates of income tax in Europe, which have been advocated by the Socialist Confederation in Europe and are supported by the Labour party in this country?

The Prime Minister: I can certainly give my hon. Friend that assurance. If the Labour party has signed European documents to that effect, I hope that it will have the courtesy to place them in the Library so that we may all see them. It is clearly Labour's vision to have high tax rates, but it is the hope of the people of this country to have the lowest possible tax rates, and that is what we shall offer.

Mr. Matthew Taylor: Does the Prime Minister agree that the draft proposals on economic and monetary union and on political union involve far-reaching constitutional change to our present arrangements? If he does, why does he reject the sovereignty of the British people in taking the final decision on the matter in a post-legislative referendum?

The Prime Minister: Because we are a parliamentary democracy.

Mr. Gregory: Will my right hon. Friend acknowledge the importance of the popular music industry and its contribution to overseas earnings? Would he echo the view of music lovers everywhere about the release of a certain rap record which shows the statesmanlike approach of the Leader of the Opposition?

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend's suggestion is tempting, but I have not heard the record and I am not sure whether it ought to be released.

Mr. Skinner: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 November.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Skinner: Does the Prime Minister recall that, in 1962, when he packed up work to look after his parents, he received unemployment benefit under the terms of the legislation introduced by the Labour Government of 1945–50? Is he aware that anyone placed in that predicament today, and who decided to go on the dole so as to look after his sick parents, would not receive a single penny piece? Who is the person responsible for that change? It is none other than the Prime Minister who, as Minister for Social Security, introduced measures to prevent people from receiving benefit in those circumstances. Coming from a man who claims to be in favour of the classless society, is that not hypocrisy?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman should, for once, get his facts straight and stick to them. I remind him that great improvements have been made not only in the amount of assistance that is available to people who are unemployed, but in the amount of assistance to ensure that people receive training so that they can get back into work. When the last Labour Government left office—[Interruption]—there were 6,000 training jobs. There are now 350,000.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Let us settle down.

Mr. Gale: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, in sharp contrast to the open-door policy apparently espoused by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) and his party, the measures contained in the Asylum Bill will be fair and of great benefit to genuine asylum seekers?

The Prime Minister: Yes, I am happy to confirm that. It is necessary to provide a proper asylum law to make sure that genuine refugees can be dealt with speedily and adequately. Without the Asylum Bill, that would no longer be the case.

Mr. Harry Barnes: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 November.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Barnes: Why is it that £22·50 is spent on advertising and publicity for each expatriate voter who chooses to record his vote in this country, while only one tenth of a penny is spent in the United Kingdom encouraging people to vote? Is this one of the reasons why 1 million people are


missing off the electoral register? What does the Prime Minister intend to do between now and a general election to put those 1 million people back on the register?

The Prime Minister: Both at home and abroad, the intention is to ensure that the people who are entitled to vote are aware of that fact. The hon. Gentleman should ask himself why he is so keen to see people who are entitled to vote not able to do so.

Mr. Jacques Arnold: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 November.

The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Arnold: Has my right hon. Friend noted the vote of parents in Gravesham, in the case of one school by a margin of nine to one, to take control over the management of their schools through grant-maintained status? Has he also noted the Labour party's policy proposal to reverse the decision of the parents and to claw back the education funds concerned to a centralised bureaucracy?

The Prime Minister: There is nothing surprising in the Labour party's policies on that. It dislikes choice and parents having authority and power. We are determined to give both choice and power back to parents and that is why more schools are becoming grant maintained. After the general election, an avalanche of schools will seek to become grant maintained.

Mr. Dunnachie: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 November.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Dunnachie: In what circumstances would the Prime Minister contemplate using nuclear weapons?

The Prime Minister: The Government's position has always been clear—nuclear weapons are there as a deterrent. The difference between our position and that of the Labour party is that people accept that we would be prepared to use nuclear weapons and know that Labour Members would not be, so they would not have a deterrent. That is why the Opposition's defence policy is incredible.

Sir Anthony Durant: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 November.

The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave some moments ago.

Sir Anthony Durant: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the reduction of the inflation rate to 3·7 per cent. is extremely good news for business, for householders and for those on a fixed income, and will he continue the policy of reducing the inflation rate?

The Prime Minister: I can certainly give my hon. Friend the assurance that that is our intention. The present inflation rate is, of course, precisely one half of the inflation rate when it was at its very lowest—just briefly under the previous Labour Government.

Rev. Martin Smyth: This nation has been a nation of volunteers. How can we encourage volunteering if we cut community volunteering and the numbers engaged in the territorial volunteer reserves?

The Prime Minister: We are examining and consulting on the particular position of the Territorial Army. As for volunteering generally, the hon. Gentleman will know that there has been a vast increase in volunteering in the whole range of voluntary services in the last decade. That has been a continuing trend. I welcome that and we encourage it.

Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.

Mr. Speaker: With permission, I will put together the next eight motions on the Order Paper.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(3) (Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.).

JUDGES (SCOTLAND)

That the draft Maximum Number of Judges (Scotland) Order 1991 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.

DOUBLE TAXATION RELIEF (ISLE OF MAN)

That the draft Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (Isle of Man) Order 1991 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.

DOUBLE TAXATION RELIEF (MOROCCO)

That the draft Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (Morocco) Order 1991 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.

DOUBLE TAXATION RELIEF (PAPUA NEW GUINEA)

That the draft Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (Papua New Guinea) Order 1991 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.

DOUBLE TAXATION RELIEF (CZECHOSLOVAKIA)

That the draft Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (Czechoslovakia) Order 1991 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.

DOUBLE TAXATION RELIEF (ICELAND)

That the draft Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (Iceland) Order 1991 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.

DOUBLE TAXATION RELIEF (FINLAND)

That the draft Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (Finland) Order 1991 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.

DOUBLE TAXATION RELIEF (DENMARK)

That the draft Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (Denmark) Order 1991 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.—[Mr. Sackville.]

Question agreed to.

Education (Schools) Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

Mr. Speaker: I should inform the House that I have not selected the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing).

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I drew your attention to a series of questions which I tabled for written answer but which the Ministry of Defence refused to answer. You will have seen in earlier exchanges today, in answer to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn), that the Minister again refused to answer. As I understand it, there was a convention in the Ministry of Defence that certain questions tabled by hon. Members were not answered.
However, in recent months the Ministry appears to have started the practice of authorising information to be supplied to the press which covers exactly the same ground as the questions tabled. Surely you have always deprecated the possibility that Ministers agree to brief the press but not to give the same information to the House. Will you consider the series of questions and take action to ensure that, if information is provided to newspapers or to television, it should also be provided to the House?

Mr. Speaker: It is not my function—the House knows this—to monitor answers given to questions. I heard what the hon. Gentleman had to say when I called him to ask a supplementary question today. I can say only that if—if—information is given to the press, it should equally be given to the House.

Mr. Allan Rogers: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: No point of order arises. It is not a matter for me.

Mr. Rogers: It is when it is impossible for hon. Members and for members of the Opposition Front Bench to obtain answers from the Ministry of Defence. When we table questions, we often receive a monosyllabic "no" or a refusal to answer, but information is given to the press which is not available to hon. Members.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: I have heard this said ever since I have been in the House of Commons.

Mr.Geoffrey Dickens: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Well, it does take up a lot of time.

Mr. Dickens: Did you notice this afternoon, Mr. Speaker, that the Leader of the Opposition asked one sensible question? Did you also notice how many Back Benchers managed to put a question to the Prime Minister as a result? Would not that be a wonderful practice for the House?

Mr. Speaker: That is not a matter of order, but it enables more hon. Members to ask questions.

Mr. Ron Brown: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Although we all welcome the release of Terry Waite and Tom Sutherland, will the Government make a statement on why they reached a deal with terrorist groups? I understood that the Government would not enter into any deals, so will the Prime Minister or the appropriate Minister make a statement, because it is important that we hear their views?

Mr. Speaker: That is not a matter for me; it is a matter for the Government.

Mr. Anthony Beaumont-Dark: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, which is directly to do with you. All of us in the House are great admirers of Sir Winston Churchill. However, before the names of rooms in the House are changed—such as the Harcourt Room being renamed the Churchill Room—is it not right that, as when Ernest Bevin's bust was put in a place to which the whole House agreed, before names are changed willy-nilly to suit some people, the House is asked its opinion? Otherwise any self-appointed or unrepresentative person can change what they like. The House belongs to its Members, and its Members should be consulted.

Mr. Speaker: As I understand it, it was done on the advice of the Services Committee which no longer exists. The hon. Gentleman should raise the matter with the new Finance and Services Committee. I do not know whether the change has taken place, so no doubt it will listen to his views.
I think that we should get on with the debate. I have already said that I have not been able to select the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing).

The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Kenneth Clarke): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The Bill gives effect to the main provisions of the parents charter, which we launched a month or two ago. It represents a further massive step in the direction of giving parents more power and influence over the education of their own children. It will also enable parents to exercise a more effective and a more real choice of school for their children.
Two key points of policy are encompassed by the Bill. The first is to provide for performance tables to be published for every school; the second is to make provision for the regular inspection of every state school, with clear and straightforward reporting of the results of the inspections being made available to the parents of the children who attend each school.
The overall effect of the Bill will be to give the general public and especially parents far more information than we have been able to contemplate before about the performance of our education system. We are opening up a world that has been closed to the general public for far too long. Once the Bill has come into effect, people will begin to ask why they were never previously able to receive the kind of information about their children's schools which we will now put into people's hands.
The provisions are a direct response to the general public's concern about the standards of education. The Government share that concern to the full, and that is what all our education reforms are about. We want to


improve the standards of education and training for our young people to the levels that the country will require of future generations. The parents charter provisions in the Bill are a key part of that whole effort.

Mr. John McAllion: If the Secretary of State is serious in saying that the proposals are a key part of the Government's educational effort in relation to the United Kingdom, why have primary schools in Scotland been excluded from the legislation?

Mr. Clarke: The Scottish education system has always varied to some extent from the English system, and matters in Scotland are the concern of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland. The Scottish Office selects the aspects of our policy which seem suitable for Scotland.

Mr. Alex Salmond: rose—

Mr. Clarke: I will press on. What I am about to say gives an idea of the differences of Scottish attitude and of Scottish provisions.
We are just getting the first provisional results of the tests for seven-year-olds, which were carried out in a more widespread way in England than they were in Scotland.
The first of the provisional results, referred to in the various documents whose contents have been discussed in the public press, are now appearing, and more information will be forthcoming. As we discover from those tests the standards of mathematical and reading ability demonstrated by our seven-year-olds, we can have some cause for satisfaction, because a good proportion of children are shown to have been making very good progress.
However, there have already been some expressions of concern about the disappointingly high proportion of children, both in England and Wales, who at that stage were making very little progress with reading in particular. That information is only the tip of the iceberg—more and more will emerge as the Government's reforms come into effect—but it reveals the purpose of our reforms.
The information itself reveals legitimate cause for public concern, and an aspect of children's performance in school that parents are most anxious we should address. That is why we are acquiring the information, and the information reveals exactly why we are embarking on a vigorous process of school reform. The information and evidence of public concern justify, among other things, the considerable effort that I know we are demanding of schools and teachers.
Looking at those provisional results, I cannot help but remember that, only a few months ago, some people, including some hon. Members, were totally against the whole idea of testing seven-year-old children in schools. A campaign run by the teachers union in Scotland achieved considerable success, and fewer seven-year-olds were tested in Scotland than in England. I assume, therefore, that the Scottish public remain shrouded in ignorance to a much greater degree than the English public when it comes to the exact performance of their schools.
There were people in England, too, who claimed that the tests would not tell us anything that we did not already know. The early reaction to the information that is emerging shows that the public did not know exactly what the situation was. Although, personally, I think that the general public felt a certain disquiet and felt a need to know more about the standards being achieved by

seven-year-olds in our schools, there were those in the educational world who were more anxious not to test, or to remain silent about the results.

Mr. Salmond: The Secretary of State cannot have it both ways. He cannot refuse to answer a perfectly legitimate question about Scottish education on the grounds that it is a matter for his Scottish colleagues, while at the same time introducing a Bill, which quite disgracefully shoehorns Scottish education into what is basically English and Welsh legislation. Will he reflect, even at this late stage, on the wisdom of referring the single clause relevant to Scotland to a Special Standing Committee of Scottish Members so that it can be properly discussed?

Mr. Clarke: The Bill follows the perfectly ordinary practice of containing United Kingdom legislation, which, for the most part, will apply to all parts of the United Kingdom and also containing a clause that makes express provision for the information that is given in Scotland. That can be addressed as a Scottish issue in Committee in the ordinary way, and I see nothing in the Bill that is remotely out of the ordinary. The generality of the Bill applies to Scotland. The Government are pursuing the same policy north and south of the border but, quite properly, we are taking account of some differences in provision in Scotland, with the result that one clause applies exclusively to Scotland.

Mr. McAllion: The Secretary of State does not seem to understand the terms of his own Bill, which for the most part does not apply to Scotland. The only part of the Bill that applies to Scotland is clause 17. Why cannot the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way to the reasonable request of the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) that the clause be dealt with separately by Scottish Members, because it affects only Scottish Members, and because no other part of the Bill affects Scottish Members?

Mr. Clarke: The policy of giving information about schools applies in its various ways to different parts of the United Kingdom. There is a clause that gives expression to that in Scotland in a way that matches the provisions of Scottish law and Scottish requirements. It is absurd for Scottish Members to say that they want a separate Committee to discuss one clause of the Bill. I am sure that most Scottish people wish their interests to be represented in debates on the education policy embodied in the Bill, and I am sure that their interests can be represented adequately in that way.

Mr. Richard Tracey: May I move my right hon. and learned Friend off the local and nationalist difficulty referred to by Scottish Opposition Members? Will my right hon. and learned Friend comment on the broader point of the premature judgment of the teachers' unions and the Labour party about the tests for seven-year-olds? Surely that proves that we must beware of premature judgments. The Labour party has also jumped to premature conclusions about grant-maintained schools, city technology colleges and assisted places and it has condemned them. The Conservative party lends itself to more mature conclusions, to the benefit of the youngsters of this country.

Mr. Clarke: My hon. Friend's intervention is relevant. The consistent theme of Labour's approach to education is that it is opposed to innovation. It is essentially a conservative party with regard to public services. If we had had a Labour Government for the past 10 years, nothing would have changed in our education system. It would have remained entirely a matter for local authorities, acting heavily under the influence of the professional trade unions. Labour would not have introduced any of the innovations that we have been and are considering, including seven-year-old tests.
I have conceded that the first year's seven-year-old tests were imperfect in their details, and I have invited the School Examinations and Assessment Council to come back— as it has—with a much improved version of the tests for next year, which will be more manageable in the classroom and give us more detailed results about the precise level of attainment, particularly in reading, that pupils have reached.
The seven-year-old tests already carried out in England have produced most effective reporting to parents about how well their children are proceeding and have provided much more information for the teachers about how their pupils are proceeding vis-a-vis the national norm. We are beginning to get widespread national information about how our schools are performing, and we will get it county by county.
I have described what have been produced so far as provisional figures. I have made it clear that this year I intend to publish the results of the first year of seven-year-old tests local authority by local authority. I will not in the first instance publish them school by school, because we gave an undertaking that we would not do that in the trial year of the first nationwide seven-year-old tests. However, I see no reason why we should not now give proper figures on a local authority basis.
I was surprised and startled to discover, when I first intended to produce that information, that only 22 local education authorities could give me full information about the seven-year-old test results. That speaks volumes about local authority control of education in this country, particularly many Labour local authorities, which simply are not used to measuring the performance of their schools, let alone producing the results. We wait to discover how many of them will be able to produce the results, how many are bothered to collate the information for their own purposes and how many are capable of transmitting it to me.
I believe that the public are entitled to know the breakdown of the results local authority by local authority. As I have said, this first year's information, which has aroused a lot of legitimate public interest, is only the beginning of what we will produce by way of full information for the general public and parents about how well each part of the system is performing.

Mr. Elliot Morley: My county council has collated information, and it has surveyed all the teachers involved in the seven-year-old tests. This is not a political matter. The county council discovered that the vast majority of the teachers disputed the value of the tests because of the impact of the rising sixes and the wide range and disparity of ages, and also because the tests distracted them for so long from classroom teaching, at the expense of the majority of the children they were supposed to be teaching. The

conclusion only confirmed what was known about the children. The value of the exercise was completely undermined by the disruption that the tests brought about.

Mr. Clarke: I concede that the hon. Gentleman's second point has some validity, but it is exaggerated. I accept that the first-year tests undoubtedly took far too much time in many classrooms, and that they sometimes held back the proper teaching of classes. It is for that reason that I asked the chairman of SEAC to review the nature of the tests and to make some changes at SEAC. Practising teachers have been appointed to SEAC. For next year, we have devised a more straightforward system of testing, which will take up less time in the classroom and be more manageable but still produce worthwhile results. There will be better results, because more information will be given by more straightforward testing of such matters as reading ability.
I dispute what the hon. Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) said about the test not telling teachers anything that they did not already know. Many teachers assert that, but the evidence of Her Majesty's inspectorate and others clearly contradicts it. The teachers' assessment and the result of the test differed in about a third of cases. As I have said, the public information that is being revealed is new, is of value, is something which the public should have had before, and will help teachers to address the standards that they are achieving in their schools.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Clarke: I shall give way in a moment. I must make progress.
The hon. Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe takes me back to the point that I was making. I am astonished to find that, a few months later, there are still people such as himself plainly arguing, "Let us find reasons for not testing the children and for not producing the results; it is not something that the general public should know"—opposing the general principles in the Bill.

Mr. Toby Jessel: On information, is my right hon. and learned Friend willing to comment on reports that the Richmond upon Thames borough council has advised the governing bodies of local schools that they may not legally distribute copies of the parents charter to parents? Is that not absolute nonsense? Is it not monstrous to seek to deprive parents of their right to information on the education of their children?

Mr. Andy Stewart: indicated assent

Mr. Clarke: My hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr. Stewart) is nodding his head. In our county of Nottinghamshire, the same practice as that in Richmond has been followed. Advice has been given that schools should not distribute the parents charter. I stress that it is only advice. The county councils and borough councils concerned are not entitled to forbid the distribution of that material, which is being distributed only in the way in which successive Governments have distributed material to parents.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Jessel): the behaviour of Richmond upon Thames borough council and that of Nottinghamshire county council shows what Liberal and Labour councils all too frequently believe about exposing


their activities and their performance to the general public. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) plainly agrees that councils should be encouraged to take the view that parents should not be allowed to know the results achieved at their schools, and that they should not be allowed more information about how their children are performing. The parents charter is a threat to the closed bureaucratic world in which the Liberal and Labour parties all too often like to cloak the education authorities that they control.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Clarke: The hon. Member for Wentworth (Mr. Hardy) has been trying to intervene for a long time. I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman and then proceed, if I may, for some time before giving way again.

Dame Peggy Fenner: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: I will take the point of order after we have dealt with this matter.

Mr. Peter Hardy: My point is important. A substantial number of senior figures in Conservative education authorities are not enthusiastic about Government policy. However, does the Secretary of State accept that, although he may be concerned about reading standards in our primary schools, reading standards in primary schools in England today are higher than they were 40 or 50 years ago? Will he therefore make it clear that, if he is to make comments before he has given the matter serious consideration, he will not disregard that important point? The Under-Secretary of State appeared to disagree with me, but I did considerable research on the subject in the 1960s.

Mr. Speaker: I will take the point of order now.

Dame Peggy Fenner: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it either proper or in the traditions of the House for a so-called Opposition Front Bench spokesman to make this gesture with his hand while the Secretary of State is speaking?

Mr. Speaker: I did not see that particular piece of body language, but body language is not unknown in this Chamber.

Mr. Clarke: I was touching on the part of the Bill which deals with the production of performance tables which will include, among other things, the results of national curriculum tests, as we steadily develop the national curriculum and the testing system. It is obvious that the production of such information arouses a great deal of controversy and body language among a large part of the Opposition. The hon. Member for Wentworth is right to say that a few senior Conservative councillors are unhappy about it, too. I regret that. On the whole, the attitude of Conservative councillors is more restrained in places such as Richmond, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire and many other councils that are controlled by our political opponents.
I make no apology for the fact that performance tables will produce for the general public information about the performance of schools which local authorities were previously deeply reluctant to let out. I invite the House to

give a Second Reading to a Bill that will make it legally obligatory to produce information that is useful to the public and parents.
The hon. Member for Wentworth made a second point, about standards of reading. I accept that he has expertise in the matter. He is a former teacher and has always followed education matters. He claims that reading standards are no worse now than 40 years ago. I often follow such debates. As there was a tradition 40 years ago of not providing generally available or comparable national information, it is difficult to come to firm conclusions.
I notice that, every time Her Majesty's inspectorate produces a report about reading standards today, and every time that there is an inquiry into a school, there is widespread public anxiety about reading standards, and a widespread desire to improve them. That is the key point.
We cannot tolerate people leaving our schools illiterate or innumerate in any significant numbers. I do not understand how we are supposed to tackle that if no one will allow us to test children's progress at key stages or if, when we do, there is resistance from local authority bureaucracy or the National Union of Teachers to allowing anyone to know the results of that testing. We are engaged on a key part of the task that faces us all now. That task is to bring levels of literacy and numeracy and, among older children, academic attainment and vocational training up to the level which today's society requires.

Mrs. Rosie Barnes: Will the Secretary of State give way?

Mr. Malcolm Thornton: Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?

Mr. Clarke: I apologise but, having given way at least half a dozen times in five minutes, I said that I would make a little more progress before I gave way again.

Mr. Thornton: On that point, Sir.

Mr. Clarke: I am sure that I shall not be allowed to get off the point entirely for some time.
I cited the seven-year-old tests as the tip of the iceberg. Of course, we shall have the results of national curriculum tests at the ages of seven, 11 and 14. GCSE results are already available to those who get hold of a school's prospectus. Other public examination results, including A-level results, are usually available if one takes the trouble to obtain the prospectus of the school. Equally key information includes truancy figures, staying-on rates for secondary schools and the destination of pupils when they leave schools. Each part of that set of information is essential if we are to know how our system is performing and to give people any effective influence on schools.

Mr. Thornton: Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?

Mr. Clarke: By popular request, I give way to the Chairman of the Select Committee.

Mr. Thornton: Few Members of Parliament, certainly on this side of the House, would dispute the need to give the maximum amount of information to parents by publishing results. However, there are some elements of disquiet, particularly in respect of pupils with special educational needs. This is a point for Committee, but I would like my right hon. Friend to consider it. There can


be huge variations in the numbers, even using the Warnock figures. I should like that point to be given some consideration in Committee, to ensure that it is reflected somewhere in a coherent form in the publication of any results from individual schools.

Mr. Clarke: We can certainly tackle that in Committee; my hon. Friend has mentioned the first of many important points. One has to make sensible use of the results and to ask sensible questions about what lies behind them. As I understand it, that is the Opposition's argument. However, if one publishes in tabular form each and every qualification that someone might believe is a necessary addition to the outline results, one is in danger of making all the information completely unmanageable and shrouding it in secrecy simply by making it excessive. I shall return to that subject and to the question of special educational needs.
A few months ago, in the parents charter, we announced that we were going to publish all that information. For years it had been kept secret, and the idea of league tables had been rejected countless times. Almost overnight, we appear to have achieved a widespread public conversion from the Opposition. Although Opposition Back Benchers from Scunthorpe and elsewhere may still be opposed to the whole idea, by and large those on the Opposition Front Bench already lack the nerve to oppose the production of performance tables for schools. The Opposition are criticising them on the basis that all we are proposing is the publication of so called raw data. They have said that there is not enough supporting information to make our proposed tables suitably useful.
We are proposing to publish straightforward, factual, easily obtainable data about each school. I do not accept the view that it will be misused or misunderstood by the public. I do not accept the patronising view that the public and parents do not realise that each school may use perfectly sensible arguments to give the background to its results.
Most members of the public can use straightforward information intelligently. Every time I listen to the comment that the tables will not sufficiently take into account the number of pupils with special educational needs or the different background and circumstances of the population served by a school, I think that the people who make such comments are demonstrating that they are not capable of making intelligent use of that sort of information.
Every member of the public knows that schools' circumstances vary. Once the essential information is published, it is open to everybody concerned to make use of it and to publish it in a local newspaper if they so wish, coupled with sensible comments about the number of pupils, the differences between schools with or without academic selection and the social and economic circumstances of each school. All those matters might properly be regarded as relevant.
Those qualifications are not arguments for not producing the information in the first place. It would be a terrible mistake to allow the inclusion of so many special points of that sort that the league tables would be covered in footnotes or would be a sustained academic thesis, so that very few members of the general public would have the time to read them and digest the information.
Let us trust parents and the public. Most of them can make intelligent use of the straightforward information that they are entitled to.

Mr. Jack Straw: Does the Secretary of State understand that the crude view that he is adopting is wholly inconsistent with that of his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker)? When we discussed the matter in Standing Committee in January 1988, he said that schools' results should be
published in the context of a report about the work of the school as a whole, including a description of its circumstances and catchment area, and a general statement about the broad effect of socio-economic factors on performance.
Far from patronising parents, that Secretary of State went on to say:
That will allow for an informed interpretation of assessment results."—[Official Report, Standing Committee J, 12 January 1988; c. 425.]
Why is the Secretary of State denying that informed interpretation?

Mr. Clarke: A few months ago, the hon. Gentleman was taking the crude view that no information about a school's performance should be vouchsafed to the general public. It is certainly true that a school can set its own examination results in whatever context seems most sensible when a prospectus is issued, including a general description of circumstances.
We are talking about comparative tables. They are an important innovation proposed by the parents charter. I do not understand how one sets out comparative tables when all the figures are surrounded by full descriptions of the circumstances of each school. Every hon. Member knows the schools and colleges in his or her constituency. They know, just as their constituents will when the information is published, the circumstances of each school. They will make allowances for those matters for which they should properly make allowance. In almost every case, they will be considerably surprised by the comparisons that for the first time will be made in performance in key respects between schools of remarkably similar objectives and background.
Other comments can properly be made, and will be made by sensible local journalists and experts of all kinds. For example, the Audit Commission recently made the valid point that added value—that is Audit Commission language—was a relevant judgment of schools. I accept that.

Mr. Straw: But does the right hon. and learned Gentleman understand it?

Mr. Clarke: I understand it entirely.

Mr. Derek Fatchett: If the Secretary of State can understand it, we can.

Mr. Clarke: There is an interesting conversation going on between new-found enthusiasts on the Opposition Front Bench for giving information to the public.
Let us take this through step by step. With the full information that I have described, one can make valid comparisons between schools. One can see how far children have advanced from where they were when they arrived at where they were when they left. That can be used to compare different schools. One might still have to qualify those judgments with judgments about the social circumstances of the school, whether that school was taking a particularly high proportion of children with


special educational needs, and so on. Nevertheless, it would be a perfectly sensible study. That study can be made now. One can compare GCSE results with A-level results to judge the progress made by sixth forms. No other form of value added comparison is possible. Until the parents charter, adequate information was not likely to be available about schools.
I am not saying that there is anything wrong with analysing the tables in that way. I have no doubt that it will be done by intelligent commentators, such as the Audit Commission, and local newspapers. If it is suggested that the Bill should require the publication of such detailed analyses in the first place—before anything can be published—members of the Audit Commission and Members of Parliament may find the document familiar and accessible, but many parents may first of all prefer to see the actual information on performance and tables.

Mr. Straw: Who is patronising now?

Mr. Clarke: We are not patronising. All I am saying is that, once we produce the material, these judgments can be made. The Labour party is coming reluctantly to the conclusion that these data must be made available, so it will come up with as many complicating amendments as possible to ensure that as few members of the public as possible get access to straightforward information.

Mr. Straw: Will the Secretary of State give way?

Mr. Clarke: I shall finish my allegations and then give way.
At times Labour Members are guilty of allying themselves with that section of opinion in the educational world that wants to make so many qualifications about results that, in effect, it is trying to prove that there is no such thing as one school being better than another. If one thinks of enough footnotes, qualifications, reasons and explanations, one can demonstrate that there is no difference between one school and another.
The Government's duty is to ensure that straightforward information is published, and that is what the Bill provides. People are entitled to analyse and make use of that information to the best extent they can.

Mr. Straw: Yet again, the Secretary of State has shown that he has not done his homework on this issue or, indeed, on the Opposition's position. Our position during the past month is the same one that we have taken for three years. Again and again, we have argued the need for Ministers and local authorities to concentrate on the value added by schools. If one simply relies on the raw data, and not school effectiveness data, it may show the strength of the pupils at the school, not the strength of the school. It is the Secretary of State who, thank God, is now making a deathbed conversion towards school effectiveness, not us.

Mr. Clarke: The hon. Gentleman has two reactions every time we produce a policy. Usually, he agrees with it rapidly, but sometimes he claims that he thought of it first. However, when one re-reads his previous statements, one finds nothing that resembles the parents charter. If the hon. Gentleman is claiming that, had he been in office, a Labour Government would have taken on the educational world and produced, out of the hands of the local education authorities and the testing system, the information that we will acquire, he is asking us to believe in cloud cuckoo land.
The Labour party has no essential policy on this issue. It would not drive through any of our changes against the interests of the educational world, which is strongly represented in it. Normally, the Opposition tow along until the end and then produce footnote detail to try to distinguish their policy from our own.
As a result of the Bill, a much fuller picture of how our schools are performing will be presented. Some newspapers have already produced data according to what information is available—largely, the A-level results for individual schools. That was interesting, but I did not agree with the way in which some of the newspapers presented those data. However, they were perfectly entitled to analyse the results from what they regarded as the 300 best schools, or as many of those schools as would take part in the project.
I believe that such results are almost the least interesting part of what is eventually produced by a school, not least because the schools on that list do not represent a problem. I do not lie awake at night worrying about the performance of those extremely good schools. Those data related to their performance with high-flying pupils.
When we have the full information as a result of the parents charter and the Bill, the public and the House will discover which state schools offer the worst performance. Wait until we see the recorded truancy rates in some of our more difficult schools. Wait until we see the staying-on rates and how they vary from place to place. We will then discover that we have some problem schools. We will also realise that, until the parents charter, the public were not given any straightforward information about the performance of schools.
A much-repeated criticism about the tables is that, once published, all the parents will want to go to the better schools. Some educationists argue that that is a sinful desire on the part of those parents, which will cause considerable problems for the schools that are not regarded as the better ones. However, that will provide those schools with an incentive to improve their performance.
The argument against the information that will be provided as a result of the Bill and the parents charter is sometimes reduced to one that claims that parents should not be allowed to know such information. Therefore, they will send their children to poorly performing schools without realising that, in key aspects, those schools fall below the level of performance that is attained nationally or in their specific locality.
The performance tables that will be published as a result of the Bill will—I apologise to the House for the jargon—empower parents, particularly from deprived backgrounds, to make more informed choices. They will have real influence over schools, because they will be given the information of which they should never have been deprived for so long.

Mr. Matthew Taylor: I believe that the Secretary of State will find that the House is united in trying to give parents the information that will make them more informed in their choice of school. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has rightly referred to the work of the Audit Commission on value-added information. As I understand it, the right hon. and learned Gentleman objected to the publication of such information because it takes longer to compile than the other information that he wants to publish and might therefore hold up the


publication of that other information. However, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman seek to have that value-added information published when it is available? He may publish other information first, but will he at least commit himself to ensuring that value-added information is made available as quickly as possible?

Mr. Clarke: That can be worked out. We are producing data that will, for the first time, make it possible for those value-added tables to be produced. I do not want all the data that is required statutorily by the Bill to be produced in such a way that, instead of a few columns and a few heads of information, we have countless columns with countless footnotes. That would make it difficult to tackle all the information.
I am not being patronising when I say that I prefer, when seeing tables of figures, to see first the key tables and graphs, if one is using graphs, on which one intends to base one's decisions. That is far preferable to going through pages of analyses without the key items being highlighted. I have conceded that value added is a perfectly reasonable analysis to make of a school. The Bill will enable the data to be published so that those value-added calculations can be made.
I was intrigued to hear the spokesman for the Liberal Democrats otherwise say that there is no difference between the parties about giving information to parents. Will the hon. Gentleman deal with the problem to which my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham was referring with Richmond borough council? It is one thing for Liberals to sit powerless on the Back Benches of this House expressing their belief in virtue. Will they, in those rare cases where they have control of the local bureaucracy, take steps to ensure that it is put into practice?

Mr. Matthew Taylor: The issue which Richmond and other councils are addressing centres on the fact that the Government passed legislation saying that local authority employees should not distribute information that is politically contentious. The parents charter is unusual in that respect, in that it sets out in red type information which has not been agreed by the House, which is politically contentious and which may not be introduced this side of the next general election. The advice circulated to those local authorities is that the information may infringe the Government's legal restrictions—[Interruption.] Perhaps the right hon. and learned Gentleman will get his officials to clarify the matter.

Mr. Clarke: I join the chorus of "Weasel words" to that intervention. The method of distributing that information has been used by Government for a considerable time and is well precedented. It is not party political information. It has been vetted for that purpose by the processes we have, it has been cleared as suitable information and it is expressed devoid of political bias.
Indeed, the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor) said that it was not politically contentious. Although he gives that as his opinion, where we have a borough council in which his party is in control, fatuous political arguments are raised for this information not to be distributed to parents. That is because what Liberals say in the House frequently does not accord with what they do when they take power. Liberals in Richmond are as bad as socialists

in Nottinghamshire in believing that parents should not be given this information about their schools, information which they prefer to control through their influence in the town hall.

Mr. Derek Fatchett: rose—

Mrs. Maureen Hicks: rose—

Mr. Clarke: I am anxious to move to the next part of the Bill, having given way probably a dozen times.

Mr. Fatchett: The Secretary of State has based most of his case on the rights of parents to know information. Will he explain why the report on the future of Her Majesty's inspectorate has not been made available either to parents or the House of Commons? Why did the right hon. and learned Gentleman, this so-called champion of freedom of information, give only one instruction to his civil servants, which was to shred the report?

Mr. Clarke: I am about to come to the next part of the Bill. The review that was carried out was advice from my officials to Ministers. I appreciate that Opposition Members have no ideas of their own, but I do not see why they should have access to advice from my officials to give them some. I have not invented the rule that advice from officials to Ministers is not publicly available. It is time-honoured. If Opposition Members are saying that, should they gain power, they would cause the publication of all written advice given to them by their officials, I shall listen with interest to what would be a novel description of the process of government that they propose to carry out.
The hon. Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett) is not rising to his usual standards if that is the best he can do on commenting on the first part of the Bill. It will give parents more information about what matters to them—the performance of their children's schools—than anyone would have contemplated before we published the parents charter.

Mrs. Hicks: Will my right hon. and learned Friend consider publishing details of the resources that go to local authorities? We have found in the past that, when they run out of excuses for giving information to parents, they revert to the excuse of inadequate resources. We have found in many areas, including mine, that some of the worst results often come from the highest-spending authorities.

Mr. Clarke: My hon. Friend is right. I am surprised that that demand has not been made by some Opposition Members, because they usually blame all shortcomings in the education service on lack of resources. We are now spending 50 per cent. more per pupil than when we came to power. We are also in a year in which standard spending assessments for councils have gone up by 16 per cent., whereas inflation has just gone down to below 4 per cent.
Therefore, not only are more resources going in, but there is no direct correlation between spending and performance. Some of the highest-spending Labour authorities in the country produce some of the worst results in their schools. The parents charter will help to bring that point out and make it more evident. Clearly, we need to spend more money on our children's education —we do so each year—but, as we continually point out, how it is spent and how effectively it is deployed in schools affect the standards attained in those schools, which is


what really matters. The late lamented—or not lamented —ILEA was a classic example of a ludicrously overspending council that produced deplorable results for the pupils in its schools.
The other important provision in the Bill is the inspection proposal, which has the same basic purpose as the performance tables. The Bill will produce a dramatic increase in the number of inspections of schools. For the first time, it will produce open reporting to every parent of the results of the inspection of each school, and direct reporting to parents of the governors' plans, explaining how they intend to build up the strengths and tackle the weaknesses in the school in the light of the inspector's report.
The Bill proposes a system with two levels of school inspection: first, Her Majesty's inspectorate, which will be given more independence of the Government and the Department of Education and Science, as well as a more public voice; secondly, a choice of teams of independent local inspectors who will meet standards set by HMI. That is a huge improvement in public information and quality control of our schools.
In the past, HMI's main role has been to advise the Government on policy, which was the main reason for its inspections. It has tended to produce about 150 public reports a year on individual schools. Indeed, HMI's school-by-school inspection was proceeding at such a slow pace that it would have taken about 200 years before every primary school in the country had had an individual inspection and report. Where HMI produced a report, I have so far found no ordinary, "lay" parent who recalls ever having seen one. Most parents never knew that an HMI report had been produced on their school.
The present system entails local authority inspections and is extremely variable in its effectiveness and coverage. In at least 10 local authorities, it is completely non-existent, because they have no inspection policy. Moreover, local authorities never allow reports on individual schools to be seen by parents. Therefore, the old system, which the Labour party would never have challenged. was seen as inspection by professionals for professionals, with parents left out in the cold.
The Bill sets up a new office of Her Majesty's chief inspector.

Ms. Mildred Gordon: Will the Minister give way?

Mrs. Sylvia Heal (Mid-Staffordshire): Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Clarke: No. I shall give way in a moment, but I wish to make some progress.
Most of the Bill deals with the important statutory functions of Her Majesty's chief inspector and the system that that new office will oversee. In contrast to the Bill, the Education Act 1944 devoted only two subsections to inspection of denominational religious education and one subsection to the appointment of Her Majesty's inspector, who had no function other than to inspect schools at the request of the Secretary of State of the day.
Her Majesty's chief inspector will have increased independence, a formal role and the power to publish as he or she wishes. He will not be detached from decision making and will have a statutory role of offering advice to the Secretary of State. He will advise as he thinks fit, as well as when requested.
The hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) has been extremely critical of the new inspectorate's authority, independence and role, because he is obsessed by the numbers employed in HMI. In a wholly typical fashion, the union objects to the reduction in numbers that I am proposing. If the union objects, the hon. Member for Blackburn objects; he makes his judgment based on the number of employees.
The numbers of staff that we shall employ in the new office will be those needed to discharge the duties set out in clause 2. The numbers that I have given publicly hitherto are the best estimate that the senior chief inspector and I can make—about 175 at the end of the transitional period. I have given that estimate before, and the hon. Member for Blackburn is reported to have said on the strength of a newspaper article that we both read:
the Secretary of State has come close to misleading the House of Commons over the numbers required.
I utterly refute that. I repeat what I have always said: 175 is the best estimate that the senior chief inspector and I could make of the number required after the transitional period to carry out the duties that I have described.

Mr. Straw: rose—

Mr. Clarke: I hope that the hon. Gentleman is rising to withdraw that allegation, because it was totally groundless and misleading.

Mr. Straw: The comparison that I made in The Independent newspaper was based on what the Secretary of State's own review had recommended as the number required to run the system.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. Tim Eggar): How does the hon. Gentleman know?

Mr. Straw: The Minister of State asks me how I know. I know from a statement made by the Secretary of State in response to the Independent article, a copy of which I have here. The Secretary of State said that the review team had concluded that a maximum of 380 to 390 HMI inspectors would he needed. That was based on certain stated assumptions and the review team's recommended package.
The Secretary of State must explain how the assumptions of the review team differ from the assumptions that he now makes. What did the review team say that the Secretary of State disagrees with?

Mr. Clarke: The hon. Gentleman made a totally false comparison before he made the totally false allegation that I had misled the House. He had read the article in The Independent and my response to it. The figures in the article were not those that I have ever given to the House. My figures were the best estimates that the senior chief inspector and I could make of the numbers required to carry out the policy that I have laid before the House. It is most unfortunate that the hon. Gentleman does not have the courtesy or good sense to withdraw an allegation based on his misreading of a newspaper article.

Hon. Members: Withdraw.

Mr. Straw: The Secretary of State made the statement once outside the House. Will he now agree that the figure of 380 was that recommended by the review?

Mr. Clarke: Last week, the hon. Gentleman was trying to be a lawyer and attempting to make me read out on the floor of the House a document that he wanted me to table. The hon. Gentleman has no ideas and is desperate for the advice of my officials. He thinks that he can lure me into making a statement that will have him attempting to give a poor man's reading of "Erskine May" and saying that he wants me to lay the document before the House. I shall not do so.
The figure that the hon. Gentleman is quoting from the newspaper article bears no relation to the figures that I used, which constituted the best estimate that the senior chief inspector and I could give of the numbers required to carry out the policy. The hon. Gentleman had no basis for saying that I misled the House, and he has no basis for declining to withdraw his allegation. He should stop fooling about and making the barrack-room lawyer performances that are starting to creep into his approach to the HMI review.
Two key assumptions lie behind the senior chief inspector and myself arriving at the figure of 175. Responsibility for the inspection of further education and sixth form colleges will transfer to the Further Education Funding Council under a Bill now before another place. I suspect that it will involve largely the same personnel, but they will no longer be on the strength of Her Majesty's inspectorate and will work for the funding council responsible for further education and sixth form colleges.
The senior chief inspector and I have made the best estimate we can of the savings that can be made in the complement of Her Majesty's inspectorate based in local offices and engaged in the inspection of schools in liaison with local education authorities. Many of those activities will be displaced by the substantial increase in the evidence available from 6,000 reports each year by inspectors registered with Her Majesty's inspectorate.

Dr. Dafydd Elis Thomas: I want to be helpful, although I shall not stand as a referee between the two Front Bench teams. When the figure of 175 was given, was that simply the clause 2 figure for England, or was the clause 5 figure for the Welsh inspectorate also included?

Mr. Clarke: They are English figures. The Welsh inspectorate is not my responsibility. The Secretary of State for Wales will form his own estimate with his own chief inspector.
The inspections will be carried out at local level by independent inspectors who will be registered with Her Majesty's Inspectorate, which will withdraw the registration of inspectors who are not up to standard. That means that inspectors will be supervised and monitored by Her Majesty's inspectorate and will not be allowed to carry out inspections unless they are up to standard.

Ms. Gordon: Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Clarke: No. I have given way many times, and I should like to proceed.
The independent teams and Her Majesty's inspectorate will contain some people who are not members of the teaching profession. I make no apology for that. Of course the vast majority of inspectors will have professional qualifications in teaching, but inspectors should not be exclusively drawn from that stable. Many perfectly sensible and intelligent people could be trained to make a

contribution to inspection. People would value lay judgment alongside the professional judgment of information about the inspection of a school.
I shall now deal with how that proposed system is being challenged. The issue between the Government and the Opposition—if there is an issue on the Bill—is that the hon. Member for Blackburn advocates a policy of patsy, unquestioning inspections of schools by people who are well known to those schools. The hon. Gentleman accuses me of doing that, but it is his mechanism. My understanding of his proposal is that inspections should be carried out only by local government inspectors.
The hon. Gentleman also takes the view that only local government should be allowed to run schools. Therefore, Labour's policy, as I understand it, is that only local councils should be allowed to run schools and that those schools should be inspected only by local government inspectors. I cannot think of a more patsy, unquestioning system better designed to produce the cosy relationship about which the hon. Gentleman so frequently speaks.
Some head teachers—a minority, I am glad to say—ask why their schools cannot be inspected by inspectors they know. There are even those who ask why they cannot be inspected by those who advise them. That would not be a desirable system. Under the registration of inspectors advocated by the Bill, local government inspection will be universally up to the standard which at the moment only the very best attain.
I am not the only one criticising local government inspection. The Secondary Heads Association shares my view of the system that the Labour party seems to defend. The general secretary of the association, Mr. John Sutton, in a letter to the Prime Minister on 23 September, said:
That some reform is necessary is not in dispute. Schools are very rarely inspected in depth by HMI and there is a need for a more regular and systematic coverage. LEA inspection has not provided an adequate substitute or back-up for HMI. This is because:
1. They have not been co-ordinated with HMI.
2. The practice and provision has varied very widely across the country.
3. There have been no agreed criteria or standards.
4. The overall calibre of inspectors has been poor.
5. The functions of inspection and advice have been mixed.
6. Inspectors have been able to control elements of expenditure, although LMS will largely stop this.
7. Their procedures have not been seen as being as open and impartial as those of HMI.
8. With individual exceptions, they have lacked the qualities which have been judged praiseworthy in HMI."
Labour's reaction to that is that local authority inspection should be made the universal norm, with local authorities inspecting the schools which only they are allowed to run. I cannot think of a recipe for diminution of standards that is more likely to succeed.
The association and others criticise what I describe as independent inspectors, but we can reassure them in the Bill and elsewhere by showing how powerful HMI will be in ensuring that standards are up to the required level. [Interruption.] do not know whether the hon. Member for Durham, North-West (Ms. Armstrong) on the Opposition Front Bench agrees with such systematic inspection, but if she does, the Labour party is instantly converted to such inspection and reports to parents.
There are choices. The choices are either that local—

Mr. Straw: We have already proposed that.

Mr. Clarke: The hon. Gentleman must have proposed it so sotto voce that neither I nor any member of the public has heard his proposal. His method of expressing himself often has its imperfections. Ever since I produced my proposals about three months ago, I have thought that he was opposing them. It is absurd, every time we introduce another element of our policy, for him to leap on to the populist pitch and then, as he no doubt will in a few minutes' time, find some detailed reasons for being opposed to it.
If there is to be local inspection of 6,000 schools a year, there are several choices. The first is to have it done by local government. The second is to increase the establishment of HMI so that it employs thousands of people, but I do not believe that a centralised civil service approach is desirable. The third is the one that we are providing—giving the governors of schools the choice of teams of inspectors, who will be up to the standards required by HMI at the centre.
The most important product of this will be the reports to the parents. They will get from the inspectors straightforward summaries saying what the strengths and weaknesses of each school are. They will then get the governors' action plans, which will be the results of all this.
When I say that parents will receive this information, I must make it clear that it will not be available on application to those parents who realise that they can obtain it. It will be sent unsolicited to all parents, so that there will be a great increase in the information available to them about the school.
Teachers will be praised for their achievements and be given incentives and guidance to improve their performance. We will build up pride in individual schools on the back of the influence of parents in what those schools are doing. The Bill will allow for reports, comparative tables and inspectors' reports. It will increase, as all our policies do, parental influence and parental choice in education on a scale on which we have never previously embarked in state education.
I disregard Labour's attempts to agree with part of this. As I have said before, I do not believe that a Labour Government would have embarked on any of this. They would not have challenged any of the interest groups that wish to maintain the status quo. The Bill will let light into the education world. Given the reaction that we are getting, it is probably not for us to defend our policy—it is more for the Opposition to tell us how darkness, secrecy and the protection of a closed professional world will serve the public good in education.
I commend the Bill to the House.

Mr. Jack Straw: We have listened to the Secretary of State speak for an hour and a minute, and during those 61 minutes never once did he utter a word about the central feature of the Bill—the doctrinaire destruction of Her Majesty's inspectorate of schools and the privatisation of the national and local schools inspectorates.
The Conservative party has no mandate for the Bill, which will undermine standards in schools, demoralise the teaching profession and, through the privatisation of the schools inspectorate, deny parents independent information about the education of their children. It will prevent the taking of prompt action to improve failing schools.
In three successive general election campaigns, the Conservative party has promised higher standards in education. After 12½ years of Tory government, anxiety about standards in schools has never been greater. Britain lags behind its competitors in every measure and is bottom of the league table. For four years running, the Government's teachers' pay committee has reported that teachers' morale has never been lower. Investment in education as a share of national wealth has slumped. Parents are being forced to pay more and more out of their own pockets for their children's education.
What is the Secretary of State's response to the overwhelming lack of public confidence shown in every test of public opinion about the Government's education policy and his stewardship of it? It is not to change the policy or feel some humility about 12 years of failure. Instead, it is to send for the advertising man to produce yet another glossy pamphlet—this time, a parents charter which is allegedly embodied in the Bill.
There is nothing new in the idea of a parents charter. It is a device which Conservative central office has used twice before when it was in a hole with its education policy. The spokesman for the Opposition, the then Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas, had one in 1974. The then Secretary of State, Mr. Mark Carlisle, had another in 1980, but both sank without trace.
The idea of a parents charter is not new; what is new is the brazenness with which the Government play fast and loose, spending taxpayers' money on party political propaganda. While teachers are underpaid, schools are crying out for repair and children for books, Ministers' standard answer is to say, "You can't solve problems by throwing money at them." However, when it comes to the central problem faced by the Secretary of State and his colleagues—that of being re-elected—their only solution is to throw money at it, providing that it is not their money or that of their supporters but taxpayers' money.
Although the share of national wealth invested in education as a whole has gone down, taxpayer spending on publicity by the Department of Education and Science has risen in real terms since 1979 by no less than 28 times. This year's spending of £6·5 million is four and a half times the level of two years ago. The parents charter does not merely inform people of the rights that they already have and which are approved by Parliament, but contains a list of proposals on the privatisation of the inspectorate. They are highly controversial and cannot come into force until after the next election, even if the Bill is passed, and then only in the unlikely event of the Conservatives' being returned. In other words, it is a manifesto; the use of taxpayers' money for such propaganda is an utter disgrace and the Secretary of State knows it.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: I had not intended to intervene so early, because I gave way several times and we need to make progress. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the figure he quoted for our publicity budget is largely a combination of our staff recruiting campaigns, coupled with increased publishing and printing costs since 1979? If he is attacking the parents charter for being party political —although in his interventions he appeared to claim that he had thought of it first—does he accept that it does not mention privatisation? If he is claiming that it does, what existing public body is he claiming that we intend to put into the private sector, either in the Bill or in the leaflet to which he objects?

Mr. Straw: The document explains about the Government's proposals.

Mr. Clarke: Privatisation?

Mr. Straw: Of course, in terribly careful language because the last word that the Secretary of State wishes to utter is "privatisation". These days, it never falls from his mouth, but even The Daily Telegraph used the word about the proposals. As I shall show, the Secretary of State is privatising the work of Her Majesty's inspectorate and of the local schools inspectorate. As he knows, the leaflet contains weasel words about how the new system of inspection of schools will work. The document is not even an accurate representation of the Bill, so it is not an accurate manifesto of what would happen to schools and to parents' rights if the Tories were to be re-elected. Therefore, the Government can be charged on two accounts—first, of spending money on a manifesto and, secondly, of issuing a manifesto that is wholly inaccurate.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: The hon. Gentleman is talking passionately, but he was in the middle of a denunciation of my spending money on political leaflets advocating privatisation. Where are the political words in the leaflet to which he objects and, in particular, which public body does the leaflet say that we shall privatise or transfer to the private sector?

Mr. Straw: I have dealt with exactly that point. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Yes. Every newspaper understands that the Secretary of State does not wish to admit that he is privatising the schools inspectorate, which is precisely what he is doing. He knows that, and he also knows that the privatisation of public services—of which he was the architect in the health service—is very unpopular with the public. He does not wish to admit the consequences of his actions.
There is no way in which anyone considering the fantastic increase in expenditure on publicity and on public relations in the past two years can come to any other conclusion than that the Government—as in 1987 and in 1983—are spending taxpayers' money on party political propaganda in a desperate attempt to be re-elected.
We cannot judge exactly what educational standards are today because of the Government's inadequate monitoring of those standards. In each manifesto since 1979, the Government have promised higher standards. In 1979, they said:
We shall promote higher standards of achievement in basic skills. The Government's Assessment of Performance Unit will set national standards in reading, writing and arithmetic, monitored by tests worked out with teachers and others and applied locally by education authorities.
That was what the Conservatives said in 1979, but they did absolutely nothing to implement that manifesto between 1979–83 or 1983–87. They said that the assessment of performance unit would set national standards and would monitor them. Shall I tell the House what they have done with that unit? In 1989, they abolished it. As a consequence, as the Secretary of State's predecessor told the House on 25 July 1990, no national data about standards of reading at seven currently exist. The Labour Government monitored reading standards. The Conservative Government started to do so, but then abandoned the process.
Educational standards could and should be higher. There is too great a variation in the performance of otherwise similar schools with similar teachers and similar resources serving similar areas and similar children. If standards in each school are to be raised, we need a better flow of information about the performance of schools, improved systems of inspection and better means by which action can swiftly be taken when a school is falling down on its job.
The Secretary of State tried to make great play of the suggestion that we had caught up with him. I wish that he had bothered to prepare properly for the debate and had bothered at least to find out what the Labour party's policy was. At the moment, in order to attack us, he must invent our policy and our record. For the past three years, we have published documents about the need to improve standards of inspection and the monitoring of standards. In June this year, well before his conclusions were announced about the review of the inspectorate, we published a document called "Raising the Standard" on which we had worked and consulted for 18 months.
That document—of which I know the Secretary of State has received a copy—states that, drawing on the experience of the Audit Commission, of which the Secretary of State approved in other respects, we would establish a tough and independent education standards commission which would take over the inspectorial work and staff of Her Majesty's inspectorate, and would lead and co-ordinate the work of local authority inspectors.
We have also read and digested the Audit Commission's report on the variability in the work of local inspectors, and we believe that it is too variable and must be reformed. HMI would be held more at arm's length from Ministers because we believe that its role as impartial monitor of the system is compromised by its other current role as private adviser to the same Ministers. Local authorities would have a clear duty to inspect and monitor schools in their areas and to publish comparative data on the performance of schools.
The Secretary of State drew attention to the curious wording of section 77 of the Education Act 1944, which deals with inspection by local authorities. In spite of the Government's claims to be concerned about inspection, they have not during the past 12 years—despite the opportunities provided by three major education Bills—bothered to try to change the current statutory basis of inspection until now.
Under our plans, local authority inspectors would be constitutionally separate from other local authority functions. Local authorities themselves would be inspected by the education standards commission. The Bill contains no such proposal. Parents and governing bodies would get new rights of complaint to the education standards commission and, in certain circumstances, they could force action by the commission in relation to a local education authority and to a school governing body.
Under our proposals, schools would receive a full inspection at least once every five years, but regular monitoring by a team of properly qualified inspectors working in all schools in an area and under the supervision of the education standards commission would provide a flow of information on a consistent basis to schools, to teachers, to parents, to local authorities, to the Department of Education and Science and to Parliament.
Our proposals were carefully worked out over a three-year period and have been widely welcomed, not


least by parents and by governors' associations, and by the Secondary Heads Association, which has excoriated the privatising of the schools inspectorate. In contrast, the near-universal condemnation of the plans of the Secretary of State has been overwhelming.
Under the Bill, the inspectorates at national and local level are to be privatised, but only the heads of the private commercial inspection firms will need to be registered with the rump of Her Majesty's inspectorate which remains. The requirement for training of the rest is lax and cannot be implemented unless the training itself is privatised. The only requirement in the Bill about the qualities needed for inspectors is that at least one in any team should be wholly ignorant of education and of schools. The only qualification laid down in the Bill is no qualification at all.
The system is untried and untested. None of the countries with which our education system is adversely compared—France, Germany, Japan and Korea—has privatised its inspectorate or is even contemplating it.

Mr. Philip Oppenheim: Japan?

Mr. Straw: Japan as well.
The scheme is irresponsible beyond belief. None of the claims of the Secretary of State for the new, privatised inspectorate stands up to examination. He says that the inspectorate will be strengthened and all-powerful; in fact it will be severely weakened. He says that it will be independent of Government. It will not be; it will be a creature of Government. He says that handing over school inspection to commercial inspectors will help to raise standards. In fact, it will make the establishment of any consistent standard of inspecting, with the consequent raising of standards, well nigh impossible.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that of the countries with which he made comparison, Japan and Korea, which he appears to extol, do not have a system of inspection as far as I am aware, so can hardly be described as having the Government type of inspection which he proposes?
I remember the hon. Gentleman's old proposal about the standards commission. Is it not the case that, under his proposals, inspection would be carried out only by employees of the Government or of local government—overwhelmingly by local government, which will manage the schools—and that Her Majesty's inspectorate, far from being made more powerful, would be placed under the control of a quango appointed by the hon. Gentleman?

Mr. Straw: The Secretary of State is wrong on the latter point and wholly misunderstands the former. The education standards commission would be nominated by the Secretary of State, but the nomination would be subject to the endorsement of the all-party Select Committee on Education, Science and Arts, and the commission itself would appoint the chief officer. If the Secretary of State is serious about guaranteeing the independence of the senior chief inspector, he should adopt that process rather than his proposal, under which he will, in practice, appoint the senior chief inspector.
The Secretary of State is wrong to suggest that only the local authority inspectors would inspect schools, but he is right to say that the inspectors would be public service employees. We do not believe that the inspection of school systems should be handed over to private companies, any more than we believe that the police, the armed forces or

the national health service should be privatised. We believe that some things can be dealt with by the private sector, but that public services and the regulation of public services should be maintained within the public sector. Even this Secretary of State adopted that position in respect of the regulation of other public services for which he has been responsible.

Mr. Harry Greenway: The hon. Gentleman will recall that, during his time with the Inner London education authority, the authority appointed a number of people from outside teaching to be heads of schools, notably Margaret Miles. Those people did remarkably well. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that it is not feasible to appoint people from outside teaching or people who have not been associated with education to inspect schools, as the Secretary of State proposes?

Mr. Straw: With the inspection of classroom practice and what goes on in schools generally, it is not possible for outside observers who have no educational experience to do the job. I visit at least a school a week. The Secretary of State has managed to visit three primary schools in a year, so he will have picked up something of what I am about to say.
I try to develop as much expertise as I can about what is going on in schools, but I have never taught. It would not be sensible to have a lay person such as myself judging what goes on inside a school. One reason why Her Majesty's inspectorate is held in high esteem is that the inspectors have had experience of classroom practice. They are or have been good pedagogues and, as a head teacher said to me yesterday, when an HMI comes inside a school, one knows that one cannot pull the wool over his eyes. If a lay person came in, it would be easy to do so.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: I am genuinely trying to clarify the principle on which the hon. Gentleman stands. No one is talking about privatising the education service, the health service, the police or the armed forces, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman concedes. To cut through his language, is the great principle on which he stands that those who inspect on behalf of the customers of the service should be employed by the people who provide the service for each and every case in the public services?

Mr. Straw: The Secretary of State has described the principle with which I disagree. I believe strongly, as I shall show, that the regulator of the services should be separate from the provider. One of the central objections to right hon. and learned Gentleman's plan is that the provider becomes a regulator.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Michael Fallon): They will be employed by them.

Mr. Straw: As is his wont, the Under-Secretary of State is muttering from a sedentary position. The inspectors will receive their pay cheques from the local authority, but, like environmental health officers, their statutory duties will place them at arm's length from the rest of the local authority. The Secretary of State cannot make a joke of that. The truth is that HMI will continue to be paid by the Crown. The judiciary are paid by the Crown, but that does not mean that they are creatures of politicians. What


matters is the constitutional relationship between those individuals and the service that they regulate, not the source of their pay cheques.

Mr. Oppenheim: What about Japan?

Mr. Straw: My understanding, based on better briefing than that of the Secretary of State, is that there are inspectorates in Japan and in Korea. It is no good the Secretary of State looking to the Box for information. Both those countries have public service inspectorates.
The claim by the Secretary of State to be strengthening the power of the inspectorate is laughable. The inspectorate is to be cut to one third of its present size. Many inspectors with years of experience are to be made redundant. Her Majesty's inspectorate will be reduced to a rump which is quite incapable of meeting the tasks imposed on it. That is not just my view, but the view of those who know a little more about the task of inspection —Her Majesty's inspectors themselves. Their association, the First Division Association, said that, far from HMI being made "more powerful and independent", it
will be severely weakened and damaged".
We know that the secret review of HMI concluded not that 175 inspectors would be needed for the inspectorate's new role, but that at least 380 or 390 would be needed. The Secretary of State wriggled about those figures. He was desperate to avoid mentioning them, for fear that he would then have to produce the review. He knows that the review said that 380 to 390 inspectors were needed. To paraphrase the review, he also failed to explain the difference between the assumptions on which he based his policy and those made in the review.
We know that the 175 inspectors will not be able to do the job that is expected of them. A breakdown of the figures in documents sent to me shows that just 43 inspectors will be involved in the inspection of schools and of educational issues. Just 39 inspectors will be engaged in supervising the army of private commercial inspectors who will have to be registered, trained, monitored and assessed, and who will then have to log their reports. On those figures, there will be just one HMI to cover the 190 school inspections that will take place in any one year in the county of Kent.
It is ludicrous to expect anyone to believe that those 175 inspectors could conceivably monitor the system over which they are supposed to have control. The fact that the task will overwhelm those 175 inspectors is confirmed by schedule 1, paragraph 2 of which states that the senior chief inspector has powers to bring in private, outside, commercial consultants, called "additional inspectors". Scores of such private consultants will have to be brought in to do work currently carried out by Her Majesty's inspectorate if the Bill's scheme is to have the remotest chance of success. Yet the Secretary of State claims that he is not privatising the inspectorate.
The second claim made by the Secretary of State is that the new inspectorate will be more powerful than the one that it replaces. The independence of any institution depends partly on its explicit power and partly on the information and knowledge at its disposal. As an institution, Her Majesty's inspectorate is to be broken up. But its intellectual foundation is also to be demolished. The respect and authority of Her Majesty's inspectorate

has been based upon the cohesion, dedication and skill of a single group of men and women and on their day-to-day contact with colleagues from the local authority inspectorate. All that is to go, to be replaced by a fragmented, privatised inspection system.
Aside from its formal inspections, Her Majesty's inspectorate typically visits or inspects 6,000 schools in the course of the year. Local authority inspectors visit and inspect thousands more. Under the proposals of the Secretary of State, total inspection is likely to be less than it is today. Policy issues may not be studied at all and activities such as youth and community work seem to have been forgotten altogether.
At one moment, the Secretary of State showers the inspectorate with hollow compliments, but, when he departs from his script, his true feelings and contempt for the inspectorate become all too clear. This afternoon, he sneered at the way in which, given the ordinary cycle of inspections, it would take 200 years to get through all the schools in the country.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: It is true.

Mr. Straw: We agree that the system ought to be reformed, but to suggest that that is all the work that Her Majesty's inspectorate does is to parody the position, and that was what the Secretary of State sought to imply. On "News at Ten" the Secretary of State sneered at unnamed teachers who felt that inspectors were people who could not teach. On 4 November, the right hon. and learned Gentleman told the House that his objection to the local authorities inspection service was that the inspectors were "ex-teachers".
The Secretary of State has no reason to feel warmly towards the inspectorate. It has damned the city technology colleges programme and criticised the Conservatives' education policy, pointing out that, after 12 years, one in three children gets a raw deal and that 20 per cent. have unsatisfactory reading teaching. It is incredible that the Secretary of State should now expect us to believe that he wants to make the inspectorate more powerful and independent so that it can be even more critical in its conclusions about Government policy.
In any event, the Bill gives the lie to the Secretary of State's claim. Three key lines in the Bill make the senior chief inspector wholly subordinate to the Secretary of State and the Government of the day. Clause 2(5) states:
In exercising his functions the Chief Inspector for England shall have regard to such aspects of government policy as the Secretary of State may direct.
The Secretary of State is a lawyer. He knows very well that, when an Act directs that someone shall have regard to something, that amounts to a clear direction of that individual.
Under our proposals, as I have already told the Secretary of State, the independence of the inspectorate will be guaranteed, membership of the education standards commission will be subject to endorsement by the Select Committee, and the commission, and the senior officer, will report to Parliament not to Ministers.
The independence and power of HMI will be undermined by the central proposal of the Bill that, in future, school governing bodies alone will pick, choose and pay their own inspectors. That proposal is based on a profound misconception of whom inspectors should be serving. Schools are public institutions, paid by the public


to serve a public purpose. The public's responsibility is to the children in each school and their parents, but also to the wider community and the national interest.
The public interests of the consumers of the service are potentially in conflict with those of the providers of the service—the teachers, head teachers and governors of any school. Governors now play a significant role in determining a school's policy and administration. The head should rightly be the most influential member of the governing body and should enjoy the closest relationship with his or her chair of governors. The governors are in no sense at arm's length from the school; in many circumstances they are the school.
In every other aspect of public life, without exception, the Government have recognised that public institutions must be regulated on behalf of the consumers, and that those regulators must be wholly at arm's length from the providers. If Ministers had come here to propose that British Telecom and Mercury could pick and choose their own regulators, there would have been a public outcry. If restaurants were suddenly allowed to pick and choose their own environmental health officers, public confidence in food inspection would plummet. If Ministers came to the House saying that they wished to encourage competition between one set of regulators and another, the country would rightly believe that they had taken leave of their senses. Yet that is exactly what is proposed in the Bill, which imports into school inspection the worst aspects of private auditing of public companies. It is the BCCI solution to the regulation of public bodies.
The Tory party claims to understand human nature, but the Bill shows remarkable ignorance of it. Allowing schools to pick and choose and pay their own inspectorate may gratuitously damage the good reputation of fine head teachers and allow underperforming heads to escape effective scrutiny. Under the Bill, schools must seek at least two tenders from different firms of private inspectors. In practice, the choice will most be influenced by the head and the chair of the governing body. On what basis will they select from those tenders? They will pick partly on price, but they will also pick the firm most sympathetic to their approach. A headmistress told me last week, "The moment that any private inspectors give us a bad report, they will not be reappointed the next time."
The ludicrous idea embodied in the Bill is, moreover, inconsistent with the stand that the Secretary of State has taken on the regulation of public services. Until the early 1980s, local authorities could pick, choose and pay for their own auditors. In 1982, a Bill was introduced to require that, in future, each local authority auditor was chosen not by the local authority but by the Audit Commission. In commending that to the House, the Secretary of State for the Environment said:
It is the essence of the audit function that the auditor should be, and be seen to be, independent … because local authorities appoint their own auditors, audit is not seen to be obviously independent of local government."—[Official Report, 18 January 1982; Vol. 16, c. 53.]
What is the difference between the appointment by the Audit Commission of local authority auditors and the need for the educational auditors of schools to be externally appointed by bodies external to the schools? The Secretary of State voted for that Bill.
Another example is the position of the NHS opt-out trust hospitals. Few institutions are now so detached from the public service. We have been told time and again how

crucial is their autonomy. As Secretary of State for Health, the right hon. and learned Gentleman had the choice of allowing trust hospitals to pick and pay their own auditors or of ensuring that that choice was made for them. He chose the latter course. By his decision, it is not the trusts but the Audit Commission that appoints auditors to NHS trust hospitals because of the self-same need for auditors to be, and to be seen to be, independent. I simply do not understand how, having adopted that position in respect of the appointment of local authorities and trust hospitals, the Secretary of State should now be wriggling to suggest that schools should pick and choose their own regulators.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: At times, the hon. Gentleman seems to come dangerously near to agreeing with my principles. The aim of looking after the customer, as compared with the provider, sounds very commendable, but I do not understand how any of that squares with the hon. Gentleman's proposal that local government should be the only inspector of the schools it runs. The hon. Gentleman is taking away all choice and saying that only local government should provide inspections.

Mr. Straw: The Secretary of State has already received one copy of "Raising the Standard". I shall send him another, which he can use as bedtime reading. He parodies our proposals. What we propose is the establishment of an independent commission, answerable to Parliament and with membership approved by Parliament, to run HMI and supervise the local authorities inspectorate, which itself runs at arm's length from the local authorities, by virtue of constitutional position and legislative power. Local authority inspectors and HMI, which are at arm's length from the schools these days, inspect the schools, but the local authorities are to be inspected by the education standards commission.
It does not lie well in the Secretary of State's mouth for him to complain about local authorities. His scheme for schools to pick and choose their own inspectors is so defective that in the body of the Bill he must make local authorities the inspectors of last resort. He acknowledges that, in the end, the responsibility may have to fall to the local authority when the privatised system fails.
The history of this is clear. Provided that the legislative framework is clear—as it is with social services inspectors and environmental health officers—there is no reason why local authorities should not be able to operate at arm's length. They are not inspecting themselves; they are inspecting schools. In addition, the education standards commission would inspect the local authorities.

Mr. James Pawsey: How can the hon. Gentleman square that? Earlier he admitted that the inspectorate would be paid by the local authority that runs the schools. He who pays the piper calls the tune. That must be perfectly logical. It is not an arm's-length operation. The hon. Gentleman is saying that the inspectorate will inspect schools in which the heads and other staff are paid by the local education authority.

Mr. Straw: The chief constable receives his pay cheque from the local authority, but that does not make him the creature of the police committee or the local authority, because his powers are clearly laid down in statute to guarantee him his independence. The Lord Chief Justice receives his pay cheque from the same computer as the Secretary of State, but that does not make him the


Secretary of State's creature. The structure and the powers for inspections are crucial. It is no good the Secretary of State trying to dodge our proposals. His proposals are fundamentally defective, because the schools that are being inspected will be allowed to pick, choose and pay their own inspectors from the ranks of private inspectors.

Dr. Keith Hampson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Straw: No, I will not, because the hon. Gentleman has just entered the Chamber.
One of Labour's criticisms of the present system is the inadequacy of follow-through action. Failing schools might be identified, but even when that happens, action to improve the situation has not always occurred. Labour's proposals deal directly with that problem by ensuring that each local inspectorate agrees in advance with the education standards commission management strategies for intervention so that there is a flow of information between inspections to provide early warning of failings.
The Bill will make follow-through and regular monitoring far more difficult, but the Secretary of State did not refer to that. Local inspectorates as we know them are to be destroyed. Local authority inspectorates that remain will operate as commercial undertakings. According to clause 15(4), the service must be entirely self-financing. The local authorities' general power to inspect is to be removed altogether.
When a school is found to be failing, who will intervene? If that failure is shown up in four-yearly inspections, the responsibility lies with the governors who must produce an action plan. That is an inappropriate task to load entirely onto the shoulders of governors. As the National Association of Governors and Managers has stressed, that ignores the nature of school governors as lay people with limited time and the fact that in most cases the failures identified will be those of the head and his or her senior management team whom amateurs on a governing body will find it extremely difficult to hold to account.
Problems in a school do not conveniently coincide with the one week in four years of a formal inspection. Nor may they be evident from the school's crude performance data. What if a head falls ill and major management problems develop as a consequence some months after the formal report?

Dr. Hampson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way now?

Mr. Straw: I will happily give way to any hon. Member who has taken part in this debate, but the hon. Gentleman has just walked into the Chamber.

Dr. Hampson: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman should retract that remark. In the past 15 minutes, I have listened to all he had to say about the local inspectorate and I simply wanted to make a relevant point about that. It is quite out of order for him to accuse me of not listening to him.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): That is a matter for the hon. Gentleman who has the Floor.

Mr. Straw: As I was saying, who then is under a duty to monitor the school's performance and intervene to ensure that it returns to an even keel? According to the Government's scheme, the answer is, no one. The senior

chief inspector will not, in general, know of such problems. Even when he does, he will not have the staff to intervene. The local authority's inspectorate will have no power to intervene off its own bat. There will instead be a great black hole. Standards of education will have been sacrificed in favour of the Bill's bizarre dogma.

Mr. Bob Dunn: The hon. Gentleman seems to be saying that he would appoint an education commission at the centre which would comprise members appointed by the Secretary of State. It would liaise with local education authority inspectors to discuss strategies for development and improvement. However, if the policy was introduced, the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) would be Secretary of State—something which will not happen and I gave up fantasies a long time ago—

Mr. Brian Sedgemore: Why intervene, then?

Mr. Dunn: To put a sock in your mouth. Mind you, it would have to be a very big sock.
A Labour Secretary of State would appoint the membership of the commission which would deal with local authority inspectors appointed by Labour councils. I am not implying that all that is wrong: it may well be right. However, there may be collusion and conspiracy to cover up, as occurred over William Tyndall school 10 years ago, a case that has been vividly etched in my mind. Is there not a fundamental weakness in the hon. Gentleman's policy?

Mr. Straw: I will send the hon. Gentleman a signed copy of our document, and when he reads it he will be reassured. We accept that the current system for inspecting and monitoring schools must be reformed. We have been saying that for far longer than the Government have said it. I accept that local authority inspectors must be placed at arm's length from the rest of the local education authority. We are absolutely clear about that. Those inspectors must be supervised by an independent commission and that is what we are proposing.
That is a great deal more coherent than the Secretary of State's proposal, but it is not too different from the proposal in the 10-minute Bill moved by the hon. Member for Dartford (Mr. Dunn). There were other defects, but it proposed that the Audit Commission should run the inspectors, and that is more coherent than the Secretary of State's proposal today.

Mr. Cecil Franks: I want to move the hon. Gentleman away from the constitutional position of his proposals and from the Government's proposals. The prime weakness of the present inspection process is that while the HMI can inspect a school, it is completely powerless to act if it finds bad teaching practice. I have heard nothing in the Opposition's proposals which would remedy that problem.

Mr. Straw: I agree that that is one of the major defects of the current system. With respect to the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Franks), there is far more in our proposals than there is in the Secretary of State's, although perhaps the hon. Gentleman could not hear what I was saying because of the noise created by the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson).
I explained that, under our proposals, each local education authority would have to agree and have validated by the education standards commission


management systems for intervening when a school was found to be failing. There are two problems at the moment. First, there is no proper system of inspection. It is haphazard and varies from local authority to local authority. Some do it well, while others do not do it at all.
The second problem is that, where a school's problems are identified, action does not automatically follow to remedy them. We have thought about this matter a great deal. We have said that every local authority must have in place—not after the event, but before the event—strategies for intervention which will include putting people into a school or perhaps terminating people's employment. Those points must be agreed in advance with the education standards commission.
The problem with the Government's proposals is that, if problems are thrown up during the inspection, the governors must produce an action plan. I believe that it is wrong to put the duty to take action on the governors, because often the problem will be the head, the deputy or the senior management of the school. It is unreasonable to expect lay people to take action against them without any support. If problems occur at any other time than at the formal inspection, in the Secretary of State's system no one will have any duty—few will have power—properly to intervene.
There is another difference between the Secretary of State's system and ours. Under our system, the governing body or parents can, in certain circumstances, require the education standards commission to intervene over the heads of the local authority or school governing body. There is no proposal in the Bill to give parents real rights where they are willing to enter into such a situation to get effective intervention by the inspectorate.

Dr. Hampson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Straw: No, I shall not give way. I need to press on. Because of the restrictions that the Secretary of State seems intent on imposing on the information that local authorities and inspectors will be able to collect and disseminate to parents, the monitoring of schools will be inadequate. Although the Secretary of State spent 50 minutes talking about the issuing of information, the only clause about information in England is clause 16. It is a regulation-making clause devoid of a specific requirement, and we shall examine it in detail in Committee.
We in the Labour party have long had an overwhelming commitment to freedom of information, and our policy review and policy statements have made that clear year after year. Because of that, as a matter of open government and of parents' rights, the Labour party is committed to making available aggregate information about a school's examination results, provided that its reliability is clear.
We have specific and serious objections, which used to be shared by Ministers, about the publication of test data school by school on seven-year-olds—another matter which we shall examine in Committee. The idea that the Secretary of State was peddling again this afternoon, that the effectiveness of schools can be judged solely on the basis of crude league tables, is simply ludicrous. It is as daft as choosing a motor car on the basis of its claimed maximum speed.
The Secretary of State's position is inconsistent with that of his predecessor. If the Secretary of State bothered to read the debates in Standing Committee in January 1988, he would notice that our view is the same as we took

then. In his own evidence to the schoolteachers' pay and review body, the Secretary of State issued a caution about the use to which crude league tables should be put. At paragraph 56, he said that league tables were
admittedly rather elementary performance measures and they should not be the sole determinant of discretionary pay.
If those tables are unreliable even to judge such a discrete issue as heads' pay, how much less reliable are they to judge the overall performance of a school?
I do not understand what the Secretary of State is scared about in providing additional information to parents and governors, as we propose. It is not we who are patronising parents, it is the Secretary of State. If, after all this time, he has been converted to the issue of school effectiveness, I congratulate him. We now need to see some Government investment and leadership on how local authorities and school governing bodies can best provide information on and do research into the effectiveness of schools, into their creation of value added, so that that information can be given to parents and governors alongside the crude raw data.

Sir Nicholas Fairbairn: If comprehensive education has been such a success, as claimed by the Labour party, why do I receive day by day from senior and highly paid civil servants, doctors and teachers totally illiterate, misspelt and unpunctuated letters?

Mr. Straw: Almost all those letters would have been from privately educated people.
Few measures such as this Bill have been pulled together in such a disgraceful manner. The review—the secret review—was rushed through in two months. Public consultation on it has been a travesty. It did not begin until 2 October, after firm proposals were announced by the Secretary of State, and did not end until 15 November, after the Bill had been published.
This evening, I shall move that the Bill be referred to a Special Standing Committee. That procedure enables there to be a Select Committee hearing to examine the consequences of a Bill before its line-by-line examination. That procedure was used by the Government in respect of the Education Act 1980, which implemented the Warnock committee's report on special needs. It is the only chance of ensuring that the full consequences of the privatisation of the inspectorate are made known before the Bill is railroaded through the House and its damage becomes irreparable.
Underlying the specific gratuitous harm that is done by the Bill's proposals is the profoundly flawed, one-dimensional doctrine of the right wing of the Tory party which has turned competition into a totem. It is an approach which means, as Cardinal Hulme so tellingly put it, that
some schools will benefit at the expense of others, some pupils favoured while others are neglected.
Like the cardinal and, indeed, Archbishop Carey, we believe in a different ethic. We believe in an education system in which every child is stretched to fulfil his or her potential, but in which he or she is taught that the happiness and success of society and its institutions depend not on self-destructive competition but on co-operation and community.
The Bill is based upon the Government's so-called parents charter, but what parents want and need are real rights for themselves and for their children. They want the


right to form home-school associations in every school. They want good information about the effectiveness of their children's schools. They want the certainty of a tough and truly independent national and local school inspection. They want the right to call in the inspectors when they are needed, not once in four years. Parents want the right to a free education for their children and an end to the millions that they are forced to shell out in donations to pay for basic essentials.
Parents want the right to have their children educated in schools with roofs that do not leak and walls that have recently been painted. Above all, they want their children taught by teachers who are qualified in the subjects that they are teaching and who are valued and held in high esteem by the rest of society. They want all that, but they have had none of it from the Government. Parents want an end to the failures of the past 12 years. They want an end to contemptuous gimmicks such as those in the Bill. Parents want an end to this Government. They want a Labour Government who are committed to the education service and are ready to invest in it. We shall oppose the Bill.

Mr. James Pawsey: Like many of my right hon. and hon. Friends, I am not persuaded by the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) that the local education authority's inspectorate will be independent of the LEA. As the hon. Gentleman says, the LEA pays the wages and I have not the slightest doubt that the inspectorate will often consist of former colleagues of the head teachers of the very schools that are being inspected. It is unfortunate that the hon. Gentleman does not have the courtesy to listen as we listened to him. The LEA inspectorate will be a blue-eyed inspectorate, and nothing more.
I welcome this Bill, the latest in a battery of measures designed to improve the quality and standard of the state education system in which the majority of the nation's children are educated. We are already beginning to see the benefits of earlier measures—for example, local management of schools, the national curriculum and grant-maintained schools—which are widely recognised as a major success. We look forward to many more applications for grant-maintained status when we win the next general election.
It is an unfortunate commentary on some LEAs that so many head teachers, governors and staff are not willing for their schools to apply for grant-maintained status. They are concerned that if, God forbid, Labour Members are elected to government, head teachers will have their cards marked. They know that their chances of further promotion, or even continued employment may be much curtailed. We want additional choice, and I believe we will get it with this Bill.
The measure is another major stride forward in providing parents with more information about their children's schools. For parents to make an informed choice, they must have access to as much information as possible about what goes on in their children's school and how much their children are learning.
I welcome specifically the Bill's reference to Her Majesty's inspectorate. In the past there have been long

intervals between full inspections of schools. Indeed, some schools have never had the benefit of a full inspection. Inspections highlight not merely the successes of the school but its inadequacies. They present an opportunity to put those inadequacies right, and they enable teachers to identify the shortcomings of the school.
The Labour party seems to think that allowing schools to choose their own inspection teams will reduce the validity of the inspections. I do not support that view. Inspectors will have to be selected from a list which has been approved by Her Majesty's inspectorate. The list will be carefully supervised, and those who fail to meet the rigorous standards imposed by Her Majesty's inspectorate will not remain on the inspection teams.
The Bill will ensure that schools are inspected every four years. Let us compare that with the present system, in which full inspections are infrequent and, in some cases, non-existent.

Mr. Matthew Taylor: The hon. Gentleman intervened earlier to say, in my view correctly, that he who pays the piper calls the tune. That was the hon. Gentleman's own comment. Surely that will apply in the case of schools taking on inspectors. Schools will choose those who will give the best report for the school at the cheapest price.

Mr. Pawsey: First, the inspectorate is not paid by the local education authority that runs the school which is to be inspected. Secondly, the hon. Gentleman somewhat underestimates the intelligence of headmasters and staff, who have an interest in ensuring that the report that they receive has some validity for their school. Headmasters believe that a report will be of some value to the school. I am having difficulty in making my voice last.

Mr. Gerry Steinberg: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that I, as a former head teacher of a school, would automatically look favourably on and pay for an inspection team which I knew would give a good report of the school? It is obvious that I would look for the people who would give me the best report. It baffles me that the hon. Gentleman can argue otherwise.

Mr. Pawsey: Whichever inspectors a headmaster selects, they will be from an approved list. All the inspectors on the list will have been approved. The inspectors will be rigorously inspected by the inspectorate. [Interruption.]

Mr. Steinberg: The hon. Gentleman should get himself a drink of water.

Mr. Pawsey: I am doing all right, thank you. If interventions like that are typical of what the hon. Gentleman seeks to do, I cannot help but feel that he would be better employed had he stayed in his former profession.

Ms. Gordon: If there are not enough HMI and LEA inspectors to carry out sufficiently frequent inspections of schools, would not the logic be to increase the number of inspectors, who have maintained standards of excellence for many years, instead of cutting the service from 500 inspectors to 175 and replacing them with commercial firms of amateurs so that, as the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor) said, the schools pay the piper and therefore call the tune?

Mr. Pawsey: The logic of the hon. Lady's argument is to leave the inspectorate exactly as it is. Even her Front-Bench team do not believe in that. She referred to taking on as inspectors people who are not qualified teachers. I shall make that point in my speech in my own way, if the hon. Lady will allow me to develop it.
The Bill will enable parents to study the reports. They will be able to read for themselves the truth about their child's school. The reports will help to demystify the education process. At present, parental decision-making takes place on the basis of hearsay—a sort of "what the parents say". The Bill replaces that guesswork with a factual, unbiased report. Naturally, parents want the best for their children. The legislation helps them to achieve that laudable ambition. It encourages more parental involvement in schools, because it makes parents more aware of what is taking place in the school.
I welcome clauses 2 and 6, which give the chief inspector a general duty to ensure that the Secretary of State is advised about the quality and standard of the nation's schools. I am also pleased that the Secretary of State retains his present powers to require the inspectorate to inspect specific schools. At present, Her Majesty's inspectorate fully inspects only about 150 schools a year. The new proposals will ensure that one quarter of all schools—about 6,000—will be inspected every four years. That is extremely important. That is the difference and the benefit. The measure should be widely welcomed by both Conservative and Opposition Members and certainly by parents.
I am also pleased to observe that not all the trade unions oppose the Bill. Peter Smith of the Assistant Masters and Mistresses Association wrote in "Report":
It is true that schools and teachers may have had a frequently ambivalent attitude towards HMI. Sometimes inspectors have seemed to be lofty theorists, remote from the day to day realities of the classroom, rather than expert practitioners whose inspection reports can be translated into action. Actual success in disseminating good practice—now voguishly termed 'quality assurance'—has not always been obvious.
It strikes me that that passage is something of an understatement.

Mr. Martin Flannery: rose—

Mr. Pawsey: That quotation also helps to answer the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg), who was formerly a headmaster in Durham. Clearly, not all head teachers share his view about Her Majesty's inspectorate. I am firmly convinced that those who genuinely seek an improvement in the quality of state education will welcome the Bill.

Mr. Flannery: I also have the report from which the hon. Gentleman quoted. He neglected to read it all. At the beginning it says:
Kenneth Clarke's decision to privatise Her Majesty's Inspectorate and put local schools inspection up for private sector tender has been fiercely criticised. And rightly so.
After the part which the hon. Gentleman quoted, it says:
Yet HMI has always been justly respected for its professional integrity and political independence. Mr. Clarke's claim that his decision will give the national inspectorate increased autonomy is unconvincing. Some suspect that HMI has exercised its independence all too much for his liking.
Apart from the sentence which the hon. Gentleman read out, the article condemns the Bill. Yet the hon.

Gentleman chose one sentence without telling us about the rest. That seems a little unfair, even from Rugby and Kenilworth.

Mr. Pawsey: The hon. Gentleman says that it is a sentence. It is a long sentence. If he looks at it again he will see that it is a full paragraph.

Mr. Flannery: Read it.

Mr. Pawsey: I have it here and I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has had an opportunity to read it, too. I notice that he does not deny the accuracy of the passage that I quoted. That is the answer to the hon. Gentleman.
It has been said with even more inaccuracy than usual that the Bill privatises Her Majesty's inspectorate. That is an interesting thought, given that most people believe that privatisation occurs when something is transferred from national or quasi-government control to private enterprise. In this case Her Majesty's inspector will have statutory powers and duties as laid down by this House. Contrast that with the present situation, in which his powers and duties are exercised on behalf of the Secretary of State.
The Bill gives Her Majesty's inspectorate greater independence than it enjoys at present. However, that does not mean that we are privatising or seeking to privatise Her Majesty's inspectorate. Frankly, those who take that view have not studied the Bill.
One benefit of the Bill is that it allows those who are not normally regarded as educationists—I am coming to the point made by the hon. Member for Bow and Poplar (Ms. Gordon), if she will listen for a moment—to play their part in the education of the nation's children. Business men and managers will be able to make a practical input into a critical part of the education process. One criticism is that teachers go from school to college and back to school again without having
the benefit or advantage of the world of work",
as my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Mr. Dunn) said.
That is a substantial benefit means that people going into the inspectorate will take with them a practical knowledge of the business world, where the majority of the nation's children will be earning their daily bread. That will strengthen, rather than weaken, Her Majesty's inspectorate. There is virtue in bringing to schools the different knowledge, experience and expertise of people who have been in industry and understand its requirements. One seldom finds business men to be "lofty theorists", to use Peter Smith's phrase.
So far, I have referred only to Her Majesty's inspectorate, but clause 16 refers to the collection and publication of information about schools. That is indeed charter country and will ensure that parents will be provided with five important documents: first, an annual report about their children's progress; secondly, a performance table giving information on all schools in a given area; thirdly, a summary of the previous Her Majesty's inspectorate report; and, fourthly, a statement from the school's governing body about how it intends to tackle any shortcomings identified by Her Majesty's inspectorate. I would describe that as a rolling programme of improvement. Finally, it will provide parents with the annual report of the school governors.
It is genuinely revealing to contrast that battery of information with Opposition Members' feeble efforts.


They have produced a contract which is an optional extra —a sort of bolt-on goodie, a non-binding, sign-if-you-like bit of paper. Conservative Members have some sympathy with Opposition Members, because they only recently discovered that parents are interested in their children's education and have a material part to play in that process. There are even those who believe that Opposition Members' conversion to parents' rights is due more to the onset of a general election than to any true belief in parent power.
It is also difficult to reconcile their new stance as the parents' friend with their non-acceptance of a parental vote, when expressed through a secret ballot for a grant-maintained school. Clearly, in Opposition Members' eyes, some parents and some votes have greater value than others.
The best description of Labour's proposed, solemn but non-binding agreement comes not from my right hon. and hon. Friends but from a man who formerly sat with Opposition Members. He described Labour's measures as "humiliating and intrusive", a "patronising" policy initiated by "bossy, middle-class know-alls." That is a more accurate description than I could give. [HON. MEMBERS: "Who said it?] Robert Kilroy-Silk, who formerly sat on the Opposition Benches and was a colleague of the hon. Member for City of Durham, who is laughing so loudly. Mr. Kilroy-Silk's description is a valuable and perceptive view of what the Labour party intend to suggest to the House.
Therefore, I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to accept the Bill. The sooner we get it into legislation and improve the quality and standard of education for the nation's children, the better.

Mr. Martin Flannery: It is always sad when someone is driven into a corner and becomes desperate. The hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey) thought that no one would have read the report that he quoted. He did not say where it came from. It is the editorial from the magazine of the Assistant Masters and Mistresses Association, which has 135,000 members, and it was written by Mr. Peter Smith, the general secretary. When the hon. Gentleman stoops to taking a few words which are in headlong collision with the view of an entire article, and tries to convey the impression that the article said what he says it said, it is very sad. It leaves one open to an accusation that we dare not make in this Chamber; otherwise, the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth would hear me say it.
I had marked another part of that article—not the paragraph that I read in an intervention, which was near the paragraph quoted by the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth. Hon. Members should listen to what Mr. Smith said next:
The attack upon local education authority inspectorates and advisory services is yet one more example of what has become an obsessive vendetta against local government in all its manifestations. Proper concern about the need for high quality, value for money public services is becoming the increasingly mindless Orwellian chant of 'Private sector good, public sector bad.'
That is another paragraph from a report which says the exact opposite of the group of words that the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth quoted.
I can understand that, because the Bill is so complicated and is born of desperation and stridency, it is difficult to explain, especially for Conservative Members who, only a few months ago, were defending the poll tax and saying how good it was. The hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth stood up and praised it to the heavens—they all did, calling it the flagship of their policy.
Now the flagship has been sunk, more quickly than the Mary Rose, but unlike that ship it will not come up again, even after a few hundred years. It is gone for ever. I think that the last peasants' revolt was in 1381. The poll tax caused a lot of trouble at that time.
The Secretary of State for Education and Science commissioned a report from the inspectorate to advise him. The report has come out and has been used in the press. One of my hon. Friends mentioned this. However, it was so alarming to the Secretary of State that he issued orders for it to be shredded. That shows his contempt for the inspectorate that he is now destroying. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) told the truth when he said that the Secretary of State, during a 61-minute speech, never got down to the fundamental reason for the Bill, which was the destruction of the inspectorate in the same way that he destroyed and shredded one of its reports to him.
What can one expect from people who do that sort of thing? They are desperate. Suddenly, 20 pages of the report by the Select Committee on Health went missing. There is an inquiry into how Tory Members who agreed those papers suddenly voted to get rid of them because they had been read in the Department of Health.
The Government are in such a fix with all their policies that a moderate organisation such as AMMA talks about their education policy being almost an Orwellian nightmare, with their hatred and vendetta and their praise of everything that is private. Apparently, private is good and all the rest is bad: if it moves, privatise it and if it does not move, privatise it. That is what the Government have got themselves into. The opinion polls will not stir; they have been the same for a year now, telling the Government that they should call a general election. The Government are pushing through all kinds of Bills at a speed that is almost unrecognisable as democracy.
This Bill, although smaller, is to education what the poll tax legislation was to taxation. It is equally daft and will have to be thrown out in time. I appeal to the Tory party to do so now. it is wrong and squalid and, like the poll tax, doomed to fail. It has a death wish within it. That was borne out by the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth, who floundered and did not know which way to turn when a single point was put to him.
The Bill flows from the so-called citizens charter which, of course, is no charter for any self-respecting citizen. The Tory party absolutely loathes the National Union of Teachers. I was one of the first to ask the Secretary of State to give way, but he would not give way to me—no, I am in the NUT. He does not like that. I was a head teacher. He is a lawyer. I might know a thing or two about education.
The NUT described the citizens charter in this document and exchanged letters with the Prime Minister, who was hard put to defend his stance. He is, these days, is he not? He had trouble today. We described the charter as "gloss without substance". The Bill is without


substance, and it does not even have gloss. It is a mess, and the Tory party knows it. It is already regarded with fear by teachers, parents and the general public.
It is so silly to start attacking the inspectorate through this Bill, which will be enacted because we do not have enough Members to stop it. It is seen as an attack on state education. It is another classic example of the Government's dogmatic, doctrinaire approach. They talk about Marxism, but I have never seen a group of Marxists as dogmatic and doctrinaire as this lot. When it comes to privatisation, they want to privatise everything. It is their obsession. The word is on the lips of every British citizen. Her Majesty's inspectorate and anybody connected with education knows that.
The Minister of State should go carefully. He got himself into a bit of a mess the other day, did he not, when he made a statement outside the House about the NUT? It sued him. He will have to pay a copper or two, will he not, for not telling the truth about the NUT outside the House? That is a dangerous habit to get into—one that I am sure he will never learn anything about.
Her Majesty's inspectorate is a body of distinguished educationists of profound integrity. They are deeply respected. Anybody who has had contact with the inspectorate knows that its task is arduous—that is mentioned in the article—and that it is difficult to get distinguished people to do the work. They are away from home a great deal. Like all of us, they are seen by the teaching profession, although as dedicated colleagues, as sometimes making a mistake or saying something with which we disagree. Generally, they are people of integrity who want to advance the cause of education but, like the rest of us, they are not always right. Neither are we, and we should admit it.
HMI has become a thorn in the Government's flesh because, year after year, in successive reports, it has told the truth about the Government. It does so in a moderate and restrained way, because it is not in a position to do otherwise. I know that from having served on the Select Committee on Education and Science all these years.
Next week, the Committee will question the Minister. Hon. Members should come and listen to our questions. The Minister knows that the inspectorate is a thorn in his flesh. That is why the Bill has been introduced. As AMMA has said, it is part of a vendetta and an obsession because HMI tells the truth which is not and never has been acceptable to the Government.

Ms. Gordon: I believe that, when the scheme was first announced, the inspectors described it as sinister. May I disagree with my hon. Friend's description of the Bill as a "silly mistake"? It is a sinister conspiracy to move education back to an elitist system, such as existed before the Education Act 1944, under which the majority of the population's children get a second-class education inspected by amateurs.

Mr. Flannery: I agree with my hon. Friend, and I withdraw the words "silly mistake". The silly mistakes to which we politely refer here are often crimes, but we do not attach such a name to them.
Let us look at the background to the Bill. The size of classes is increasing. They are bigger than they were 10 years ago, and they are getting even bigger. We all know the reason: there are not enough teachers or proper schools. Yet 400,000 teachers are not teaching. So many

have left the teaching profession that we have been driven to recruit from Australia and even Germany, where people do not speak English. If teachers were paid a proper living wage, we could recruit them all over our own country.
There is a lack of books and equipment. Everyone in the teaching profession knows that. If hon. Members go in and look at the schools, they will see the lack of books and equipment. Dog-eared books are passed around and there is not enough money for major pieces of equipment. Schools lack general resources because they lack money. That is all part of the background.

Mr. Steinberg: May I tell my hon. Friend a little story about the age of books? Recently, a young student from Johnston school in Durham came to see me with a book that he was using for his A-level history. On the first page, it said. "This book belongs to Gerald Steinberg." In other words, that school is still using a book that I used 30 years ago.

Mr. Flannery: That story, which I knew about, is not only a true story and a condemnation of the Government, but a tribute to the way in which my hon. Friend and successive groups of children in state education have looked after their books. Nevertheless, in time, even those books become dog-eared, yet there is no money from the Government to buy more books.

Mr. Pawsey: rose—

Mr. Flannery: Not again.

Mr. Pawsey: If the hon. Gentleman's picture of the teaching profession is accurate, can he say why entrance to teacher training colleges has increased by 20 per cent. this year?

Mr. Flannery: Of course I can. I have given an accurate picture. Thousands of teachers have left the profession, and we want them back. However, at a time of mass unemployment—it is steadily heading towards 3 million —there are always people who decide to become teachers.
I was unemployed a long time ago, and I wanted to be a teacher, but it was difficult to get into a college. However, many of my colleagues had been unemployed before they eventually became teachers. When there is a great deal of unemployment, people will go into teaching, but the core of the teaching profession is made up of those who want to teach and who want the dignity of that profession. They want to be properly valued. They do not want to be slandered and abused as they have been by the Government for the past 12 years—hence their low morale. The Minister may smile, but he must try to deal with that fact, just as we will have to deal with it when he leaves all his mess.
Class numbers are increasing because of the insufficient number of teachers available, and schools face other problems because of crumbling buildings. Everyone knows what a mess they are in. Many of the schools have not been painted because they do not have the money to buy that paint.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn said, if a school is in a well-to-do area, there are bound to be plenty of books in each child's house. Their parents will listen to them reading and will take an interest. Those parents can also give more money freely to their child's school. If a school is in an area of high unemployment, the parents of pupils may have difficulty in finding enough


money to feed their children, pay the rent and pay the poll tax, as well as all the other things that have been heaped upon them by the Government and then withdrawn when they panic about them. That means that that school will suffer. We will end up with a two-tier system because the school in the posh area will have plenty of money coming in from parents, while the school in the poor area will receive no such funds. Therefore, the children in the poor area will suffer. Ever-increasing class sizes will cause further problems for schools in poor areas.
The other morning, on "Today", the Secretary of State said that it was not always a bad thing to have a large number of pupils in a class. Let him say that to those who have children in the private sector. He should tell us how many children there are in classes in the private sector schools. Conservative Members send their kids to private schools while our children in the state sector take a kicking from the Government.
Teachers perform well, but they are always vilified and attacked by the Government. In the meantime, the specially favoured city technology colleges are absorbing massive amounts of money. Most Conservative Members do not know how much the CTCs and the assisted places scheme cost. I looked up that cost in the Government's own publications and found that it was nearly £700 million. That public money has been taken out of the education system and away from children who urgently need it and given to those who are already rich. We do not need any lessons from the Conservative party.
Private education is flourishing because of the assisted places scheme. Many of those schools receive £1 million and more each year of public money. That money is taken from the state education system.
Morale among teachers is low, and that feeling has been created by the Government. However, now the Government have begun to praise teachers because they know that they have gone too far. Dedicated independent inspectors have repeatedly drawn attention to the problems caused by low morale, increased class sizes and the poor state of school buildings. Their reports are an acute embarrassment to the Government, so HMI must go. However, the Bill is designed to ensure that it looks as though HMI has not gone. That is why the Bill, which will make all the problems worse, is pregnant with chaos. It will create such chaos in our schools, but then that is what will be caused by the new poll tax Bill and all the other Bills.
AMMA has stated that it wants
good school inspection arrangements and improved and increased access to information about the quality of the publicly funded education service.
The hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth should read a little bit further than he did from its editorial. The association also states:
We judge that the provisions of the Bill, as printed, are confused and inadequate for their purposes.
The hon. Gentleman should read that, and he should talk to the general secretary of AMMA. He should admit how he distorted what was said by neatly picking out a certain part of the editorial, when in fact that editorial was against the Bill.
The National Association of Head Teachers represents 35,000 heads and deputy heads. It is deeply concerned about the Bill, and, in the conclusion to its briefing, states:

However, many in the Education Service, and very many Head Teachers, will feel that the correct balance has not been struck by this current piece of legislation. The consequences of the lack of balance, contained within an Act, as currently displayed in the Bill, are potentially very serious.
Those head teachers are important people. Conservative Members know that because they always praise head teachers, except me and my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg).

Mr. Pawsey: You can understand why, Martin.

Mr. Flannery: Of course I can, because, in common with HMI, I tell the truth. I am happy to read more of what Conservative Members would consider as "select" truth from leading teachers' organisations.

Mr. Eggar: If the hon. Gentleman always tells the truth, perhaps he can explain to the House his earlier remark that money spent on assisted places and the CTCs goes to those who are already rich. Can he justify that remark? He knows perfectly well that the assisted places money is provided to parents through a proper means test. At least one third of that money goes to parents whose total income is less than £8,000 a year. He knows perfectly well that the CTCs choose pupils who apply to them and ensure that those pupils are representative of the area in which each CTC is based. Will the hon. Gentleman have regard to the truth and withdraw his earlier remarks?

Mr. Flannery: I am content with completely disagreeing with the Minister. He knows as well as I do that the money for the CTCs and the assisted places scheme has been siphoned from the education system into middle-class areas. If he can disprove that, he can do so later.

Mr. Steinberg: Is my hon. Friend also aware that the Minister forgot to tell us that savings are not taken into account in the means test?

Mr. Flannery: The Minister and his colleagues know that I am telling the truth, but they are free to try to disprove what I have said.
What the NUT has said about the Bill will also be denounced by the Government. It states:
The proposal that each school chooses its own inspection team could lead to a 'cosy relationship' with Heads and Governors choosing inspectors who will be friendly to existing practice within the school. Given the inevitable wish to guarantee being 'bought in' four years later, inspection teams are liable to play safe in terms of their report. If they do not, a different inspection team may be chosen four years later with no consistency between one inspection and the next.
That would be dangerous. At the moment, dedicated inspectors go around the country. I believe that there are insufficient numbers of them and that Her Majesty's Inspectorate needs more personnel, never mind reducing its number, to report properly. That would sink the Government, and they would be shredding a few more reports if that happened.
The NUT also states:
The facility for schools to choose their own inspectors is likely to result in parents receiving a report in which they can have little confidence.
Inspection should be seen as a contribution to the ongoing process of raising pupil achievement within a particular school, rather than the 'Labelling of that School—.
The Government intend to label certain schools as sink schools. They intend to produce a league table as though we were talking about football teams. That cannot be done


in education, because education does not allow for it. An important lesson lies ahead for those who intend to do that to our children and teachers.
The briefs which hon. Members have received from many of the teachers' organisations accentuate a number of points. One is that teachers have immense respect for the existing inspectorate and suggest ways not of privatising it but of improving and expanding the inspectorate and giving parents improved access to information about the public education system.
Next, they are immensely fearful of the Bill and consider it to be confused, inadequate and fraught with peril for the education service. Provision for the majority of pupils is getting worse, the teacher-pupil ratio has worsened for the first time in 26 years and the average size of primary class is larger than it was in 1981. City technology colleges receive £150 per pupil more than local authority schools, grant-maintained schools average £187,000 by way of capital grant, and LEA schools get only £18,000.
We need a real citizens charter, standing for the rights of education. Such a charter should lay down enforceable standards of education, with maximum class sizes, so that there are not huge classes in one school or in one part of a school and smaller classes elsewhere.

Mr. Pawsey: If the hon. Gentleman believes what he is saying, will he explain why his own contract does not set out what he is aiming at?

Mr. Flannery: I assure the hon. Gentleman that I mean every word I say. I would answer his question if I knew what it meant. That intervention was about as clear as his speech.
We must have maximum class sizes so that we know where we stand and minimum levels of resourcing for books and equipment so that there is enough money in the public sector to provide our children with good equipment and books, items that are to be found in all private schools. There must be minimum standards of provision for support staff. In other words, there must be cover for teachers who are ill or who need to be on courses. Perhaps Conservative Members do not appreciate that, in schools generally today, only the lucky teachers can go on courses, particularly in primary schools. It is clear from the blank looks on their faces that they are not aware of that.
Many primary school teachers cannot attend courses because teachers are not available to take their classes when they are away. In addition, most of them have no free time or marking time. They come to school early in the morning, work through lunch time and leave later at night than they used to. Change is imposed on them with undignified haste, and it contributes to lowering teacher morale. Supply staff must be guaranteed to cover teacher absences. When teaches are away ill, other teachers are not available to take their classes, particularly in the primary sector, but increasingly in the secondary sector.
Those are all matters which, in a moderate and restrained way, HMI has pointed out over the years to successive Conservatives Governments. The result is that the Government have introduced a ghastly Bill to get rid of awkward people who keep telling the truth about what the Conservatives have been, and are, doing to education.
The Government have embodied in this pitiful measure their contempt for our excellent and improving, but grossly underfunded, state education system. Just as the

NHS is not safe in their hands and is being steadily privatised, so our education system, which is also now being steadily privatised, is not safe in Conservative hands. The whole nation is unsafe in their hands. The Bill is a major warning to all. It must be fought and ultimately thrown out, as it will be, and soon, by a Labour Government.

Mr. John Greenway: The debate provides us with a timely opportunity to take stock of what is happening in our schools, to speak of the success to date of some of the reforms introduced in the last five years —the Education Act 1956 and the Education (Reform) Act 1988—and to examine the changes outlined in the Bill to improve still further the education arrangements for our children.
Concern about education was a major motivation for me to enter politics. I was elected to North Yorkshire county council in 1985 and served, albeit for only a couple of years, on the education committee and schools committee. I was a governor of several schools, including two large comprehensives, a large junior school, a special school and the York college of art and technology, a further education college.
It was a pity that I was not able to serve longer on those bodies. My service was interrupted because I was elected to this place in 1987, and I admit that education has not been an avenue into which I have channelled in my party activities. But I visit many schools in my constituency regularly and particularly keep closely in contact with the school that my children have attended. Two of my children have left school and gone on to college and my youngest is still there. I shall say more about that school later.
One might believe, listening to some hon Members' speeches and from reading the newspapers, that the whole of our school system is crumbling. I cannot speak for other parts of Britain—I will not speak for what I have not seen —but I know what is happening in North Yorkshire schools. The education system there is delivering a first-class system of schooling for our children. There is much of which we can be proud in our schools. Parents and the public at large can be proud of our schools and of the achievements of our young people.
In the 1986 Act—I was serving on the local education authority at the time—the Government introduced a requirement for reports to be presented to parents and introduced parent governors. Last week I received, as a parent, the annual report for Huntington school in my constituency on the outskirts of York. I spotted in it only one factual error. It referred to my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mr. Fallon) as having been promoted to Minister of State, Department of Education and Science, when he is still the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State. That must be a prophecy that he will retain his seat in the general election and will later be promoted to Minister of State.
There is a genuine concern lest, in giving information and promoting the results of examinations, reports to parents may neglect other important areas of educational activity—that, in the pursuit of better examination reports, some of those areas may be left behind. That does not appear to be happening at Huntington school, so we must examine some of the issues examined in its annual report.
There is, first, a detailed report about events earlier this year when the 25th anniversary was celebrated. The school does not have a long history, but it has some excellent examination reports to which I shall refer. Clearly, the school's social life is extremely active. The report includes a long section on how the school has implemented the proposal to have its own budget. I supported the measures in the Education Act 1988 to introduce such a system.
Indeed, North Yorkshire already had a pilot scheme in place before the last election. The report shows that the school has benefited greatly from controlling its budget and resources. It has made improvements by creating a new post of office manager, upgrading stock in the library, extending and reorganising the office for clerical staff, creating new areas for sixth-form students, including a BTEC facility and an additional seminar room, significantly upgrading technology and audio-visual equipment, implementing an extensive programme of internal decoration and providing additional departmental resources for text books and equipment.
The report states:
The governors' broad policy is to use the increased funds wisely, both in the provision of the best up-to-date facilities and equipment for pupils and for enhancing the school environment with emphasis on security, safety and energy efficiency. Certainly, we are very pleased with the extra flexibility and benefits we now have over purchasing, decorating and maintenance".
That sentiment has been echoed by other head teachers. When I visited another large comprehensive school only a couple of weeks ago and addressed the sixth form, the headmaster told me that the school has now been able to carpet and curtain some of the noisiest classrooms, creating a much better environment for teaching the children.
That was one of the schools that took part in the pilot project for LMS in 1986–87. Although the LMS initiative has brought considerable benefits, problems with the funding formula for junior schools and some smaller comprehensive schools still exist. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister of State and the North Yorkshire education authority will continue to consult to ensure that the best arrangements are made and that some schools do not suffer as improvements are made in others.
The annual report also deals with the school's budget, which was £2 million in 1990–91 and has increased to more than £2·2 million in 1991–92, the current academic year. The report says that 1,316 pupils are now on the roll and that the staff consists of 80 teachers. [HON. MEMBERS: "What has that to do with the Bill?"] It has everything to do with the Bill, because it proves that it is possible to provide comprehensive information for the benefit of parents. That is what the parents charter is about and it goes to the heart of the Bill.
I have not yet referred to the publishing of examination results, which is the main concern about which we have heard this afternoon. A conclusion which I, as a parent, draw from the information that I have just given is that the school is spending £1,671 per pupil—a 10·3 per cent. increase on the figure for the previous year. We must bear in mind the fact that the education authority still has responsibility for some expenditure. That figure represents the best bargain that exists in public spending.
I sincerely believe that the money that we are spending on our schools provides an excellent return, and it must

continue to be one of the key areas for growth in public expenditure. The past 12 years under this Government have seen a growth in public expenditure and it is for local education authorities and county councils to decide on the priorities for their expenditure. The Government and North Yorkshire county council have done that. No one can argue that expenditure per pupil provides anything other than value for money, provided that we look at the other side of the coin and consider what we can achieve with that money in terms of successful education.
The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery) referred to school numbers, and I am sorry that he is no longer in the Chamber to hear my remarks. The figure in the annual report shows that the school roll of 1,316 and 80 teachers is a pupil-teacher ratio of less than 17:1. I think that, in 1979, the figure was about 19:1. My hon. Friend the Minister is nodding, so I seem to have the statistic right.
Examination successes are a major concern. The annual report points out that last year's A-level results were the best that the school had achieved and this year's were even better. It says:
17·6 per cent. of all passes were at A grade and 60·3 per cent. of all grades were at C or above".
That was a commendable result. As for the results of the GCSE examinations, the report says:
Bearing in mind that our policy is that all students are generally entered for GCSE examinations in all the subjects they are studying"—
no picking and choosing those most likely to succeed—
it reflects great credit on staff and students that only 26 of the 1,780 examination entries were ungraded. At the other end of the scale, 53·9 per cent. of students achieved five or more grade C passes compared with 49·3 per cent. in 1990.
As a proud father, I can tell the House that my son Anthony was included in that 53·9 per cent.
It is well known that schools in North Yorkshire achieve considerably above-average results. North Yorkshire does not spend above-average amounts on resources—its resourcing is about the national average. Some hon. Members wish to point out that North Yorkshire is a relatively affluent area, and I willingly accept that. However, affluence does not ensure that children will do better.
Comparative figures for other schools in North Yorkshire show that the number of grade A and B passes range from 18·8 per cent. to 51 per cent. Some head teachers were grossly offended when figures in the Sunday Times survey omitted state schools in North Yorkshire, because some of those state schools have performed considerably better in their A-level results than some of the best independent schools in the United Kingdom. Therefore, even in an affluent county some state schools do better.
As for the publication of a more detailed breakdown of results, I commend to my hon. Friend the Minister of State another document that came with the annual report. It gives a breakdown of the number of students entered in each subject at GCSE and A-level in 1990–91 and 1989–90, and the number of passes obtained at each grade. I used my marker pen to mark the grades that my sons had attained in the examinations. I found nothing offensive in publishing such information.
I was pleased to hear my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State say earlier that we should persist in trying to devise ways of making value-added judgments


about children's progress. It seems that some comprehensive schools do not have sixth forms, so the child moves on to a sixth form college to take A-levels. The child may have poor GCSE results or good ones. We should also address the issues of how he or she performs at A-level or on a business studies course at a further education college.
One benefit to be derived from testing seven, 11, 14 and 16-year-old pupils is that, over time, we shall be able to monitor their progress and give parents the information that they need on their children in a way that they can understand and—the key issue—to help them to feel encouraged that they are working with teachers, head teachers and the governing body to the benefit of their children's education. That is happening increasingly in schools in my constituency. They may be performing in the best way—I perceive that to be so—and we should work towards attaining that standard in all our schools across the length and breadth of Britain. To do so we must introduce new regulations, and the Bill does that.
The first of my pleas to my hon. Friend the Minister is to take care that, in drafting the regulations to improve standards in sectors where that is needed, we do not undo good work or create unnecessary difficulty for schools that already provide the very best. We should allow the necessary flexibility. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister would agree and I shall send him the report to study. If we can ensure that all schools send such reports to parents and include the performance of each individual child, it will lead to greater parental involvement in our children's education.

Ms. Gordon: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that the publication of raw materials in league tables will mean that schools considering their position in the league will become increasingly reluctant to accept children with special needs? Consequently, those children will, to their detriment, be educated in sink schools. The hon. Gentleman approves of the testing of seven-year-olds. Does he know of the concept of reading readiness? Many children are not ready to learn to read until the last term of infant school, and if they are tested and pushed too early by teachers and parents, it can undermine their confidence, preventing them from becoming readers, not helping them. Therefore, the test could prove to be a two-edged sword.

Mr. Greenway: I listened with interest to the hon. Lady and am not out of sympathy with her concern. However, there is no evidence that children with special needs will not be accommodated in schools at all levels. In 1986, I was a governor of a junior school which was one of four schools competing for pupils under a shared catchment area policy. That was before the Education Reform Act 1988 and parents could choose which school their child would attend. My school specialised in educating children with special needs and enjoyed great success.
On the hon. Lady's second point, on the telephone today I asked the chief education officer of North Yorkshire, Mr. Fred Evans, about the parents charter. He suggested that we should consider it the other way round. He said that, based on the current performance of schools in the county, parents sending children to schools in North Yorkshire could expect that more than 95 per cent. of seven-year-olds would achieve the reading ability laid down in the test and there was an 82 per cent. chance that

the child would be ahead of chronological development. Therefore, I do not believe that the hon. Lady's assertion is borne out by the facts.
We have heard much claptrap this afternoon about the Government's proposals on the vexed question of inspections. There will certainly be controversy when the issue is discussed in Committee. Yesterday, North Yorkshire education authority discussed the issue. It resolved that the council supports the principle of independent inspections of schools. It is important that the House should accept that principle. There is great benefit to be derived from having independent inspectors who are properly trained and monitored by Her Majesty's inspectorate.
I have sympathy with the two reservations expressed by the county council. It said, first, that the education authority would wish to maintain a school advisory service to help schools to remedy faults found in inspections. Secondly—this lies at the heart of our proposals—the authority would want to be able to take action to remedy faults when governors are inactive and fail to take any action on inspections. It would be wrong and unwise of us to rely totally on the willingness of parents and governors to ensure that action considered necessary following an independent inspector's report is carried out.
I do not suggest that we should retain the inspectorate as it is now; we are absolutely right to bring in an independent inspectorate and allow Her Majesty's inspectorate more of a monitoring role. However, I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will give careful consideration to the crunch issue.
Ultimately, if local education authorities are retained, their role must be to decide policy, provide resources and play a part in monitoring the progress of policy implementation. I am not advocating that a local education authority inspectorate should be sent in on a regular basis, but it would be wise to consider ensuring that there remains a reserve power. Perhaps we should not abolish section 77(3) of the Education Act 1944, and the education authority should reserve the power to send its own inspectors into a school which remains under local education authority control and in which there are clearly management problems.
During the last election campaign, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary came to my constituency. At a public meeting, there was a lively debate on education reforms—a key issue in that election campaign—and I said that I strongly suspected that, by the time of the next election, there would not be one school in North Yorkshire that was grant-maintained. That is the case. [Laughter.] Opposition Members laugh. I predicted that none of the schools would think it necessary to seek that status. However, schools in other parts of the country have done so, and that says rather a lot against the education authorities from which those schools have escaped. Many of those authorities are Labour-controlled.

Ms. Hilary Armstrong: I do not like to have to confront the hon. Gentleman with facts, but I must tell him that the overwhelming majority of grant-maintained schools are in Tory areas.

Mr. Greenway: If that is the case, I stand corrected. One or two schools in the North Yorkshire education authority area have expressed interest, but none has taken the step


of becoming grant-maintained. That speaks volumes for the education service provided by the North Yorkshire authority.
I hope that in winding up the Minister will be able to answer my questions and will confirm that there is nothing in the Bill to prevent a local education authority from forming its own independent inspectorate which schools may prefer to use. Of course the authority will have to tender for the contract along with private inspectors in the normal way, but the matter should be carefully considered.
When the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science, my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mr. Fallon), came to North Yorkshire, he found a great deal which pleased him. If we want to make the best education service available everywhere, it behoves Ministers to come to North Yorkshire more regularly to see what it is doing to get education right. That will ensure that the benefits of our success can be passed to schools in other parts of Britain.

Mr. Matthew Taylor: I was pleased at the way in which the hon. Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) commented on the high quality of much of the state sector. In debates that tend to focus on faults, there is an inevitable tendency to forget about what is good in education. Teachers sometimes feel that they suffer from general and unfair criticism. The hon. Gentleman spent so much time commenting on the school which I understand his children attend that he gave the impression that he was standing as a parent governor and was making the opening speech of his campaign.

Mr. John Greenway: I have been a governor of the school.

Mr. Taylor: In that case, perhaps the hon. Gentleman is on a re-election campaign. We agree with much of what he said about the Bill's proposals, because, although I do not think that he intended it, what he said amounted to criticism. He supported much of what we have said, not least in his succinct and accurate description of what an LEA should do and the need for it to have the power, in some instances, to inspect what is going on in schools and help put matters right.
As I have said, much of what happens in the state sector is good, but there are clear problems. It is not politically divisive to say that, because that view is held on all sides. Teachers complain of difficulties in education and blame the Government, just as much as the Government tend to put the blame on teachers.
In the past few days, a series of problems have been reported in the press. Yesterday's issue of The Guardian reported on an NUT survey showing that over a quarter of primary school classes contain more than 30 pupils. Sunday's issue of The Observer reported that, in the past three years, parents have spent £75 million on basic books and equipment for schools to make up for underfunding by the Government. The Times Educational Supplement reported on Friday that instrumental music teaching provided by schools has in some areas been cut by more than a third. We read of parental concerns about the shortage of qualified science teachers, the lack of nursery places and the poor condition of many school buildings.
The initiatives presented by the Government, after 12 years in office, in this Bill and in the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Bill do not address one of those multitudinous concerns. The so-called parents charter offers only the promise of regular school inspections and more information for parents. No one would deny the importance of regular school inspections or of information to parents, but much else is needed which the Government do not offer. Inspection must be thorough and must be followed by good advice. Parents need meaningful and helpful information and action to put right what is discovered to be wrong. The Bill offers none of those things.
How will the Bill improve standards when it reduces the number of Her Majesty's inspectors from 480 to 175 and reduces the role of HMI to that of a supervisory body? It farms inspection out to private companies to be bought in by schools which will be offered choice only on the basis of who offers the most easy-going report at the cheapest cost. It does not specify how information will be provided, but grants unlimited power to the Secretary of State to require whatever he wishes, when he wishes it, without consultation.
If the Bill is supposed to be about raising standards and giving full information to parents, it will fail. I shall later explain why in more detail. If it is about winning votes by taking a populist platform—which I suspect is the case—it will likewise fail, because parents will become increasingly concerned when they look at the Bill's detail. Parents are well aware that the problems created in schools by the Government are too far-reaching to be solved by the Bill's provisions.
Liberal Democrats have deep-seated concerns about the Bill and will oppose it and seek detailed and comprehensive amendments in Committee. Our main worry is about the fragmentation of the inspectorate. The Bill says that the chief inspector for England will have the duty to keep the Secretary of State informed about the quality of education and standards in schools. However, his power to do that is seriously limited by the reduction in the number of inspectors from 480 to 175. That reduction will mean a loss of many specialist skills, and the time of inspectors will be largely taken up by the new regulatory function.
The Government introduced the Education Reform Bill, now the Education Reform Act 1988, and other major education reforms, but they are now breaking the back of the one body that could effectively report on how successfully those reforms are working in the nation as a whole. If the Government really want to know how the system is performing, they should strengthen Her Majesty's inspectorate, not weaken it.
How will competition between inspection teams promote higher standards? If the basis of competition, which the Government have adopted from the private sector, is offering a good product at a low price, what choice does that leave schools except to choose inspection that is likely to offer an advantageous report at an advantageous price? Even if that were not so, financial constraints on schools could mean that they will have little choice but to opt for the cheapest teams. Small schools, of which there are many in areas such as mine, are likely to suffer most from the cost of that process.
The chief inspector is required to advise the inspection teams, but who will advise schools on who to call in, the kind of contract to draw up and the qualities to be sought


in the inspection team? What advice will there be about the form that inspection should take? There are no details in the Bill about that, and that gives rise to justifiable fears that inspections will not even be of current quality. Frequent but poor inspections are not an improvement on infrequent but good inspections. Will there be the ability to deliver detailed departmental inspections? Will there be an examination of how effectively cross-curricular subjects such as environmental education are taught?
The Government are foolish to underestimate the value that schools place on a local education authority's continuing and knowledgeable role and its knowledge of an area's background. Where in this Bill is the opportunity for follow-up advice and further inspections to be called in when that is necessary? The benefits of on-going support and advice will be lost, to the detriment of our schools, and the Government have little to say about that.
We risk more than the inspection system. Because it is so tightly worked in with the advisory system, there is a fear that, in the process of sorting out, we could lose much that is of value in the advisory system as well. The Government have not explained how they envisage that process taking place in such a way as to prevent that.
If the HMI can have a role in organising private inspection teams, why not keep local inspections but have them monitored by the HMI rather than having them purely subject to LEA supervision? That would ensure the strength of a locally based system linked into advice, but with monitoring from a national body to ensure that standards of independence and rigorous inspection are upheld. If the Government were coming forward with that proposal—it would not require substantive amendment to change their present proposal into that one—there would be a broad welcome for it. Instead, because of an ideological commitment to privatisation and competition in a sector where it is inappropriate, the Government are leaving us with a Bill for which they claim many advantages but in which all those commenting on it can see only disadvantages and ultimately falling standards.
If the Government do not accept that that will be the result, are they prepared to publish the results of the consultation exercise on the inspection system that is to be embarked on? I very much doubt it. So far, the process has attracted damning criticism, and praise has been hard or impossible to find.
Who will make up the inspection teams? We have the requirement that a lay member be included, but how about the rather more important principle that, for example, there should be a member with expertise in special needs education to examine what is happening on that? Will there at least be an assurance that training given to would-be inspectors will include training in assessing the quality of special needs education?
Among my deep misgivings about the Bill is a fact that is obvious to anybody who looks at the Bill—there is no detail in it. The Government are giving themselves sweeping powers to set up a system, but they have refused to give details of how it will work in practice. The Secretary of State has said repeatedly that he understands the problems of pupils with special needs, but he has refused to make provision for the concerns that we have expressed.
The Secretary of State spoke about league tables and his understanding of the value-added principle, but he has refused to do anything about incorporating it. As is so often the case with the Government, particularly when

they frame education legislation, they are asking Parliament to grant the Secretary of State wide powers and are leaving him, unfettered by proper debate or restrictions on what he does, to prescribe the details of what will happen.
The part of the Bill dealing with the publication of information by schools gives the Secretary of State many powers, but few details of how he proposes to use them, and gives parents no powers to get something done about what that information reveals. We understand that the Government's intention is that LEAs should publish league tables, including exam results, truancy rates and figures on the numbers continuing education or entering employment on leaving school.
The Secretary of State says that he wants straight, understandable information, not cooked figures. However, the limited information that he proposes to give will mean confusion rather than clarity and will lead to unfair comparisons between different schools. If the Secretary of State wants to help parents to choose the right school for their children, this is not sufficient.
Simplistic league tables will discourage schools from admitting pupils with special needs and so reduce opportunities for those pupils. They will encourage teachers not to enter pupils for exams in which they are not certain that the pupils will score highly, and so reduce opportunity for those pupils. They may tell parents, rightly or wrongly, that the school is under-performing, but they do nothing to give parents or pupils any opportunity to do anything about it.
Few would disagree that information for parents is important. Those parties committed to a freedom of information Act have already committed themselves to a far broader measure than is proposed in the Bill. There must be enough information to give a fair reflection of the achievements of the school. If the Government are insistent on compelling LEAs to draw up league tables, why can they not also insist on the giving of background information?
Why are the Government pressing ahead with their plans so determinedly despite the fact that the Audit Commission has said that it is possible to measure the performance of schools by showing the progress made by pupils rather than raw results? For the first time, the Secretary of State showed some signs of beginning to understand that principle, but he refused to make any provision to ensure that such information is published in a form that is accessible to parents. On the other hand, he still has an over-abundance of enthusiasm for raw data that do not provide anything like the same information for parents.
A school with an intake of high achievers does nothing more than we expect if they leave as high achievers. A school whose intake is of low achievers has achieved something truly remarkable and worth while if at least some of them leave as high achievers. Why demolish the reputation and self-confidence of such a school with crude league tables that would relegate that excellent school to the also-rans?
If the Government want an alternative, would it not make sense to give the job of establishing performance measures and the task of specifying the form in which the information is to be published to the Audit Commission, which specialises in such measures? If they are not prepared to take that step, they should at least make a commitment in the Bill, or even across the Dispatch Box


in the way that they refused to earlier, to ensuring that value-added information is made available alongside the crude information.
If the Secretary of State wants to ensure that parents can make important decisions about schools, he should give them the information that he said earlier that he believes is a helpful part of any analysis of how a school is performing. Nothing in what the Audit Commission said would require detailed intricate information at the bottom of every list to help the average parent to understand it. The Opposition parties might want more to be added about children with special needs, but that is not my point. I am asking only that the Government adopt the Audit Commission policy and show the value added by a school.
It is obvious from the Minister's unwillingness to come forward that the Government's aim is not to give useful information to parents but to create lists that will distort and deceive. I may be in a stronger position to say this than Labour Members, but, above all, lists will show schools in deprived areas—often those with the greatest numbers of pupils who do not have English as their first language—as under-performing. Uniformly, those schools are in LEAs run by the Labour party or in some cases by the Liberal Democrats. The Government are creating a political weapon that, in its present form, will do nothing to help parents to make rational choices. We are not arguing that this information should not be made available. We are saying that all the information—not just that which suits the Government—should be made available. When there is evidence that the value-added approach to providing information is possible, and will provide for fairer assessment of a school's quality, as the Secretary of State admits, why not use all the available options?
What do the Government envisage with these league tables? Such choice as the Government offer, if choice it is, will be meaningless to most parents in rural areas such as mine, as they do not live within easy travelling distance of several schools from which they can make a choice. Even in urban areas it will not be long before schools that show up at the top of the league tables are full and, again, parents will have no choice but to send their children to schools which the Government are creating league tables to rubbish but for which they are providing no resources to solve the problem.
For most parents in Cornwall there is no option but the local school. Parents want to know that that school is providing a good education for their children, not that there is a better school at the other side of the county to which they have no hope of sending their children. If there are weaknesses, parents want to know that resources will be provided to put right those weaknesses, but the Bill does not provide for that. Above all, no one wants a local school to be labelled a failure if it is a success in terms of value added and of improving a poor child's education.
My comments reveal what I hope will be raised in detail in Committee, and I shall certainly raise such issues. I hope that the Secretary of State will participate in the Committee. He portrays the Committee as dealing with a Bill that is a Government flagship, one that is vital for the nation, a principal aspect of the Prime Minister's citizens charter and fundamental to the parents charter. However, there is little chance that the Secretary of State will attend

the Committee to defend the proposals in detail, and no wonder now that we have seen how weakly he performed when trying to do so in the debate.
I also support the request that the Bill should be brought to a Special Standing Committee. One of the abiding features of the Government's reform process has been a lack of consultation and the infliction of rapid change on schools, followed by a rapid reversal of those changes. The lack of consultation has been raised by the Secretary of State to the status of high art in his proposals for the inspectorate. If the Bill were dealt with in a Special Standing Committee, we could call the people who will be directly affected by and who are most knowledgeable about the issues. At that late stage, we could at least have a genuine consultation and debate with everyone involved.
It is hypocritical for the Government to argue that the Bill is about freedom of information, about making available to parents and to the wider public information on which to judge schools and about making available what they regard as an improved inspection system, but then to refuse hon. Members permission to see the evidence presented to the Secretary of State about the inspectorate and to refuse to publish the consultation responses about proposals for the inspectorate.

Mr. Eggar: I know that the hon. Gentleman has not been in government and that he is not likely to be, but will he confirm for the record whether it is the Liberal party's official policy that internal advice to Ministers will always be released to the public?

Mr. Straw: The Rayner scrutiny on the HMIs.

Mr. Taylor: The hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) says that the Rayner scrutiny on Her Majesty's inspectors was published, but there is a more fundamental issue. If Ministers seek to justify their policies by referring to information and advice made available to them, not to allow that information and advice into the wider public arena so that people can judge for themselves whether Ministers are telling the truth suggests that they are not telling the full truth.
In those circumstances, my party believes that the information should be made available, and that would be the aim of a freedom of information Act. The Government try to have it both ways. They say that the advice from civil servants is impartial and that it must not be seen because it is private to Ministers who make the decisions, but when they are questioned about their decisions, they refer to the private advice that they will not publish. That is a deceit. It is not democratic and it comes ill from a Government who propose the Bill in the name of freedom of information.

Mr. Alan Amos: I begin by congratulating my right hon. and learned Friend on introducing the Bill which is a logical and sensible next step in the implementation of the citizens charter. Its two underlying aims are to raise standards and improve the quality of our educational system and also to widen choice which will be an informed choice and, with open enrolment, real and meaningful.
The Assistant Masters and Mistresses Association said:
We … support the broad aims which underly this Bill —improved school inspection arrangements and increased public access to information about the quality of the


publicly-funded education service. We believe that proper steps towards these aims would contribute to securing further improvement in the quality of children's education.
The National Association of Head Teachers said—

Mr. Derek Enright: Read the rest.

Mr. Amos: The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery) read from the same brief. As he is a natural pessimist and I am a natural optimist, I quoted the good and he quoted only the bad.

Mr. Fatchett: The hon. Gentleman quoted the first paragraph of AMMA's report. I know that he would not like to do any injustice to the report, but if he were to read the second paragraph, which contains its judgment on the Bill, he might come to a different conclusion. To put the record straight, I shall read the second paragraph:
We judge that the provisions of the Bill, as printed, are confused and inadequate for their purposes. We therefore ask Members to seek very considerable revision to the Bill in Committee, in order to secure more confidently that the reforms will realise their intentions.
If the hon. Gentleman is to be consistent with his opening sentence in which he quoted AMMA's report, he must proceed to argue—rightly—that the Bill is confused and inadequate for its purposes and he must tell us what revisions he will seek. If not, I suggest that he withdraws his reference to AMMA.

Mr. Amos: I was a member of AMMA for eight years and I understand its concerns, but I have quoted the brief which shows its support for the Bill's underlying aims. Therefore, it seems logical to support Second Reading and to debate the details later.
The National Association of Head Teachers said:
There is undoubtedly a need to improve the regularity of formal school inspections, as well as a strong case for the provision of detailed information about schools to parents.
That is an example of another highly respected teaching organisation which supports the principles behind the Bill. Therefore, I assume that the Opposition will want to give the Bill an unopposed Second Reading.
On the question of raising standards, the Bill will increase the frequency and regularity of school inspections. It will lead to about 6,000 inspections a year compared with a measly 150 last year under the present system. I was a teacher in a state comprehensive school for eight years and I never saw an inspector. Perhaps my lessons were so good that they did not need to be inspected, but I never saw an inspector. Every school will in future be inspected every four years.
The Government are rightly concerned with not only the relevance of what is taught, but the quality of how it is taught. Hitherto, inspectors' reports have been kept secret from parents and from the public, but under our proposals every parent will automatically receive a readable and understandable summary of the report with a concrete action plan from the governors telling parents how they will act on the findings.
The method and procedure of the inspection will mean that HMI will develop new powers, duties and responsibilities and that it will become more powerful and independent of central Government, as it should be. However, its role as guardian of educational standards will not change. It will regulate the standards of the new inspection teams and only those registered by HMI will be

allowed to operate. The work of the new teams will be carried out to agreed national standards, properly and carefully monitored and enforced by HMI.
The inspectorate will continue to be responsible to the Secretary of State. Even though LEA inspectors and advisory staff will probably be part of many of those teams, it is right to end the role of the local education authorities in inspection, because of the inherent conflict of interest. To have a dual role as advisor and inspector is incompatible, just as we agreed that it was in the water industry. It can never be right to be both judge and jury.
The Bill provides for a logical and sensible extension of local management of schools and the greater independence that we have given to our schools. Parents should have the right to independent information about their children's schools. They can still choose the local education authority if they want, but—importantly—they have the choice not to. If the local education authority team is better and cheaper, the school can choose it if it wishes.
It is wrong to suggest that schools will be able to choose an easy inspection team. With the enhanced and more meaningful quality control function of Her Majesty's inspectorate, it will not be possible for that to happen. It would not be in the professional or career interests of the inspectors. The leader of each inspection team, a registered inspector, will be licensed for a renewable fixed period, so his professional status would be at risk.
I agree that we must strive for as much consistency as possible in the new system. There are real problems under the current arrangements which the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor) wishes to preserve for all time. He was not here a moment ago, but I see that he has now run hot foot into the Chamber. The Liberal Democrats want to retain the present system.
On the current arrangements, an Audit Commission report in 1989 entitled "Assuring Quality in Education" revealed wide variations in the size of the local education authority inspectorate services. It criticised their monitoring role as
uneven and in some LEAs disturbingly small.
On 28 June this year, The Times Educational Supplement published a brief summary of the data available on LEA inspectors. The article said:
Workloads varied considerably and between authorities … An Audit Commission survey of 67 authorities in 1988 showed that some inspectors spent less than 10 per cent. of their week observing in classrooms, whereas others spent more than 60 per cent. of their time in the classroom. A National Foundation for Educational Research survey found that only 40 per cent. of LEAs required inspectors to write any sort of report on all or most of their school visits.
Consistency is important, but equally and possibly more so are rigour and regularity.
Under the Bill, more information will be provided to parents and to the public generally. I am pleased that the proposal has widespread support among parents and within the profession.

Mr. Flannery: Where?

Mr. Amos: I just quoted AMMA and the NAHT, which are two highly respected organisations. Both have accepted the broad principles that underline the Bill. The hon. Gentleman should not be so pessimistic. He looks only for bad news, but there is a lot of good news around.
The National Association of Head Teachers—I did not rise to the dizzy heights of headship, but was merely a classroom teacher—says that it is


strongly in favour of the principle of providing information on schools to parents.
It accepts the principle underlying the Bill.
I do not know what all the fuss is about. When I was the chairman of Enfield education committee in 1981, I decided to publish all the schools' public examination results, despite strong and sustained opposition from the educational establishment. I took the view, which I still hold, that parents and taxpayers had a right to that information. It was not for me to justify the release of the information, but for others to justify their demand that it should remain secret. The real reason was that they could not trust anyone to have the statistics, and that is the Labour party's view today.
There may have been a genuine fear that as a result of the release of information, there would be a widespread movement of pupils between schools—from the less popular to the good schools. That did not happen. There was no dramatic sea-change and there will be no dramatic sea-change under our proposals, which involve public examination results, national curriculum test results, truancy rates and the destinations of school leavers.
The vast majority of people know their local schools, but the parents who do not or who want to make a carefully considered choice of all the schools in the area are entitled to as much information as possible. The information should be provided as of right so that they can make as informed a choice as possible. Parents should not have to extract the information from unwilling local councils, which do not have a monopoly right to the information.
I understand the concerns about the examination league table. That is why contextual information will be available in the schools' prospectuses and in the governors' annual report. Together with the annual written report on the pupils' progress and our other reforms, we are building up a profile of pupil achievement. All good schools should already give annual written reports especially at a time of regular testing and with the measurable progress and benchmarks that we have built into the national curriculum.
Other hon. Members have referred to value added information. How can that be provided practically? As the National Association of Head Teachers—perhaps the hon. Member for Hillsborough would like to contradict this—rightly said:
attempts to build in weightings according to social circumstances are almost certain to be unsuccessful and are likely to be ignored.
The concept of value-added information sounds fine, but in reality there are practical problems.

Mr. Matthew Taylor: The hon. Gentleman is confusing two issues. Social background is one possible measure and there are difficulties with that. The value-added proposals of the Audit Commission take as the fixed point what the child has achieved, whether GCSE or other level, and consider the point to which the child has moved at the next examined level. That could be done comprehensively, as the Secretary of State agreed. I hope that the hon. Gentleman accepts that that could be published.

Mr. Amos: That is perfectly possible. As the results are published over a period of years and over the pupils' time in the school, the information will be built up and

available, but one cannot have all the information immediately. One has to start the tests and start to produce the information before there can be a comparison. The hon. Gentleman's point is valid. I have always supported measuring and testing pupils as early as possible so that, as they go through school, one can measure how they are performing in relation to their potential. Unless one has the information at the beginning, one cannot measure later progress and thus identify those in need to whom help should be channelled.
The hon. Gentleman is right. We want as many tests as possible early on so that the information can be used for later comparisons. My hon. Friend the Minister of State, who is a perfectly reasonable man, supports that principle.

Mr. Eggar: indicated assent.

Mr. Amos: I shall develop the point. Does one add 10 per cent. for children from single-parent families? That would be wholly wrong. When I was teaching, two of my best students came from single-parent households. Does one add 15 per cent. for ethnic minorities? We are told constantly of the high achievement rates of Asian pupils. The proposal is nonsense in practice. With the publication of the list of examination results in comparison with capital spending and with the list of LEAs showing what percentage of their potential schools budget has now been delegated to the schools to spend for themselves, we have already established the principle.
I do not believe that a convoluted system attempting to justify and explain the results would do anything other than add confusion to a situation in which we can safely trust the parents. Parents properly take many factors into account in choosing schools, including discipline, school uniform and the ethos of the school. The annual report and the prospectus contain all the relevant information about the school, including academic and non-academic activities, so parents have access to a complete profile of what is on offer at the school.
It is a pity that the Labour party is so misguided in its obsession with input into education. It judges everything by the amount of money spent—even though expenditure is at record levels—rather than according to how effectively that money is used and the quality of output. Northumberland came 63rd of 96 in the per capita spending league, whereas, in the exam results league table, it came 15th. That is a commendable result. What matters is how the money is spent, and we should not pour money in regardless.
The examination league tables published in the Sunday papers recently left out many good schools because trendy left-wing councils refused to co-operate and hand over the information. That simply proves how important it is not to publish partial information but to publish comprehensive data in a standardised format for all schools. That is exactly the purpose of the Bill.
For the past four and a half years, I have had to listen to the whingeing and whining of the Labour party while it has opposed every single measure that we have introduced to raise standards and widen choice. Usually, the Opposition have been confused, incoherent and inconsistent, as witness their stance on the pay review body. They take the view that, if something is not done by the state bureaucracy, it should not be done at all. On the provision of more information, the Opposition clamour for open


government and open access to education, yet they do not, and cannot, trust parents and the public to be given the information, let alone to interpret it sensibly.
I trust parents and I believe that they have the right to information. Unlike Labour Members, I believe in competition and incentives. I do not fear the facts; the whole point of establishing them in the first place is to find out where help is needed and to direct help to the schools that need it. The Bill is all about raising standards and it does not pretend that schools do not vary in quality. I strongly support it and commend it to the House.

Mr. Gerry Steinberg: The Bill will dismember and privatise Her Majesty's inspectorate of schools. It will privatise the local inspectorate system, so that schools themselves will choose who is to inspect them. It is proposed that Her Majesty's inspectorate be vastly reduced in size. The Secretary of State told us today that the Government propose to cut the number of inspectors from 500 to 175. The inspectors will continue to carry out certain inspections at the instruction of the Secretary of State and, in advising the Government, will supposedly draw on a large number of inspection reports by independent inspectors,. Schools will now buy in inspections. Regulators will be chosen and paid for by the schools being inspected. What a crazy idea. That certainly cannot provide HMI with a proper basis on which to advise the Government.
The proposal that each school should choose its own inspection team could lead to what has already been described as a cosy relationship, with heads and governors choosing inspectors friendly to existing practice within the school. That seems to me a fair assessment of what will occur, because the bought-in inspectors will inevitably wish to guarantee that they are bought in again four years later. They are bound to play safe in their report. If they do not, a different inspection team may be chosen four years later, and that will mean that there is no consistency between one inspection and the next.
It is incredible that much of the work will be done by audit inspectors, who will obviously include private money-making firms. That means that the quality assurance inspectors will be able to observe the work of the new independent inspectors only once a year. Some of HMI's work will have to be curtailed or stopped altogether. In the longer term, the capacity to provide district school inspectors will also be doubtful.
The Government argue that, as a result of the changes, HMI will be much more independent. That is nonsense, because the Bill explicitly gives Ministers power over HMI. In fact, it is clear that the Government are determined to silence HMI, because each year HMI has produced a damning report on the state of our education service, and each year the Government have simply ignored it. Every year, HMI says that our schools are crumbling and that many children do not get a proper education. Every year, the Government ignore such reports. Recently, they have not only ignored them; they have actually shredded them.
Now, they plan to get rid of the inspectors, so that they can no longer produce damning reports. Instead, the job will be given to private firms, which will have every reason not to make accurate reports about schools. Consequently, the Tories' undermining of our education system will be swept under the carpet. The Government

talk about freedom of information and about parents' having all the information they need. We have heard about that in speech after speech, but the Bill proves that it is bunkum. The Government do not want parents to have information. They want it swept under the carpet because they know what they have done to our education system over the past 12 years.
How can anyone trust criticisms made or reports written under a system that allows inspection teams chosen by school governors to inspect schools and report on them? Inspections will be carried out by private consultants. How in the name of heaven can one allow a school to appoint its own inspectors and then expect an accurate unbiased report? For that matter, how can one expect schools to chose an unbiased consultant?
If any system of inspection is to work properly, those who carry out the inspection must be totally independent of those who are being inspected. They should also be seen to be independent. How can the public have any confidence in an inspection service under which schools will pick and chose their own inspectors? It is a mockery; it is ludicrous.
In my view, the inspectors should have a role that will ensure and support effective change and development within schools. Surely, under the Bill, it will not be in the business interests of the inspection team to encourage schools to develop better systems of self-evaluation and review. The new inspectors will be primarily responsible to the school rather than to the local education authority, and half the local education authority resources currently allocated to inspection, advice and advisory teachers will be delegated to schools to buy in their chosen inspectors. The reduction in resources will drastically curtail the ability of each LEA to monitor provision and provide support services to schools. More incredibly, it will remove LEA's right to inspect any school that they maintain.
To make matters worse, the inspection reports that the schools will receive will be anything but useful. They will be inconsistent and unreliable. The emphasis will be placed on inspections based on single schools rather than work on trends or issues, phases or subjects, such as Her Majesty's inspectorate's important recent work on the introduction of a national curriculum. As I have already said, the Bill will lessen the quality of advice that Her Majesty's inspectorate can give the Government.
The inspectorate should be free to investigate and to instigate reports on the effectiveness of Government policy, and not just to act on the direction of the Secretary of State. I am sure that most parents would welcome a broad picture of schools' strengths and weaknesses. Independent inspection teams are unlikely to have sufficient knowledge of the local community, a school's history and of other local schools to be able to provide reliable information about the effectiveness of that school. The result is that parents will receive a report in which they can have little confidence. Inspections should be regarded as a contribution to the continuing process of raising pupil achievement in a school rather than as labelling that school.
Perhaps the most objectionable thing about the private inspectors is the proposal that the inspection teams must provide a lay member. The criterion is that they must not be involved in education. That is absolutely appalling. How in the name of heaven can someone with no background in education make a valid judgment or criticism of a school? That is like asking a layman to go


into a hospital operating theatre and make a judgment of how the doctor or surgeon is operating. That is a crazy and appalling system and it is the most disgraceful part of the proposals. How on earth can an inspection team function if it is not based on expertise and experience? The team can have expertise and experience only if its members have been involved in education at some point in their careers.
We have heard much about parents in this debate, and the views of parents should be paramount. Those views must come from representative parents such as governor parents or parent association officers, and they must be based on clear terms of reference. If teacher morale is not to be further undermined, there must be an absolute guarantee that individual members of staff should not become subjects of discussion. There must be an obligation to discuss a serious complaint with the head teacher and staff before the complaint is included in the report.
The Government introduced a national curriculum supposedly to develop a nationwide education strategy. However, the measures in the Bill are contrary to that aim. The Government are doing away with the mechanism by which national standards can be measured and improved. It is clear to me that the proposals in the Bill will make it easier for poor standards to go unnoticed. It will be much more difficult for parents to exercise rights in relation to their children's schools. So much for the Prime Minister's citizens and parents charters.
The second part of the Bill can be summed up as "league tables". The Bill gives enabling powers to the Secretary of State relating to information about the performance of schools. There are likely to be league tables giving examination results, truancy rates and leaver destinations for every school in a particular area. It is desirable for parents to receive meaningful information about their children's achievements and for schools to be able to monitor how effective they are. However, the publication of raw assessment and test results will not achieve those aims. Such publication would be divisive and meaningless.
Without a fuller analysis of value-added information, the publication of results will simply reflect the difference between schools in terms of cultural and socio-economic profiles of their pupil intakes. By comparing raw data with pupil intake and weighting achievements, if necessary, the information will not give the true picture at any school. The publication of results will not take account of the influence of the proportion of pupils with educational disadvantages, learning difficulties and other variables such as pupil mobility, teacher turnover and resourcing levels.
Monday's edition of The Northern Echo, the local paper for the north-east of England, carried an article about school standards. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Fallon) must have shares in that paper, because he seems to appear in every edition. That paper does not particularly support Labour's point of view, but, the article by the education correspondent stated:
Education standards are rising as more pupils in County Durham schools get top marks in GCSE and A-level examinations. But the statistics vary considerably from school

to school, demonstrating the difficulty of compiling league tables just as much as they may indicate problems in some schools.
The article quotes Keith Mitchell, the director of education for Durham. I am sure that the Under-Secretary of State has a tremendous relationship with him and agrees with almost everything he says—as we read in the paper virtually every week. Keith Mitchell stated:
the difficulties of judging school performance through examination statistics are notorious.
He presented a report to the county council in which schools were referred to in alphabetical order rather than in statistical order. He said:
exam results are of great importance, but they arc only one measure of a successful school. Results tend to reflect the social and economic background of pupils and their different expectations.
Instead of having an alphabetical league table, The Northern Echo decided to produce a league table according to GCSE results. It was no great surprise that that league table showed that four of the top five schools in the county of Durham were located in the university city of Durham, where a significant number of pupils' parents are academics. The city is also reasonably affluent.
In that area, the number of children receiving free school meals is considerably lower than in seven of the 10 schools at the bottom of the league, 20 per cent. or 30 per cent. of whose pupils come from deprived homes. The Northern Echo stated:
Although this table highlights schools with a high percentage of O-level passes, we could produce a league table putting Carmel ahead of Park View, Belmont and St. Leonards"—
schools within the city—
and promoting Wolsingham from 27th place to fifth place since over 90 per cent. of the pupils gained five or more GCSEs.
The point is that league tables can show anything we want them to. We cannot depend on a league table to show how well a school is doing. A league table can prove anything.
The Northern Echo then stated:
The permutations are endless and the county council must pursue them so schools are fairly placed on the Government's examination league tables next year.
That proves conclusively that league tables are absolutely worthless. They provide information that should already be known if the job is being done properly.

Mr. Fallon: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and for his kind references earlier. I should have thought that the example that he has just given proves almost exactly the opposite. If he is capable of interpreting, as he has just demonstrated he is, the league table that showed that four of the top five schools are in his constituency, why are his constituents incapable of interpreting the table in that way?

Mr. Steinberg: With respect to the Minister, my constituents already know that. They do not need a league table to tell them that they have very good schools. The league table gives a false impression of the schools below the top five in the table. The table seems to imply that those schools are inferior, but they are not; they are just as good. In many respects, they could be doing a better job, but because of the raw results and the permutations, the statistics can prove anything at all.

Mr. Flannery: Is it not clear from the outbursts from Conservative Members, and especially from the Minister,


who clearly does not seem to understand education, that they really believe in elitism in education and the devil take the hindmost? That is why they want league tables.

Mr. Steinberg: I completely agree with my hon. Friend. League tables do not show anything more than we already know. We do not need them.
The publication of results will cause schools and pupils who are identified as failing in comparison with others to be demotivated and undermined. That is what league tables will do. It is also obvious that the publication of results will mean that, because such a huge significance will be given to the assessment of certain parts of the curriculum and to academic aspects of achievement, teaching to the test will actually be encouraged. The consequence will be the narrowing of the curriculum. In the long term, that will mean the lowering, not raising, of standards and the demotivating of many pupils.
The assessment of pupils' progress is important because it should encourage pupils to learn, inform teachers and pupils of progress, and provide feedback on achievement. If assessment becomes dominant—in other words, teaching to the test—curriculum aims are unlikely to be achieved. The effectiveness of a school is measured by what is taught in the whole curriculum and by the quality of life in that school.

Mr. Dunn: The hon. Gentleman speaks with sincerity and knowledge about education, because he was a professional before he came to the House. However, I am a little confused by the drift of his argument. He said that, in his constituency, all the information that went out was known to parents, so there was no need to publish. Surely the need to publish a league table is obvious. The hon. Gentleman's constituents might think that they know which are the best schools and which are the worst schools in his constituency, but the league tables might show a different picture and might enable parents to make a positive, defined, sophisticated choice about the school to which they may want to send their children. The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways.

Mr. Steinberg: The hon. Gentleman does not understand league tables and the results of league tables. Parents know the performance of the school to which they send their children. Many of them would not have sent them there in the first place if they did not know how the school was performing. Many parents have no choice—it is the school within their area. Parents know how a school performs. They do not need league tables showing the top, bottom or middle. It is wrong to argue that league tables would give that information. I have already explained that league tables can be jiggled. They can be based on fewer results and on many other things. League tables do not give reliable information.
The Bill will do nothing for education. It is a further step in reducing standards in schools and lowering the morale of school teachers. We should have had a Bill that defined maximum class sizes and the minimum level of resourcing of books and equipment. Incidently, the school that is top of the list according to The Northern Echo is using books that are 30 years old. It must scrimp and save and use books that are 30 years old.
We should have had a Bill that defined the minimum standards of provision of support staff, guaranteed standards for school buildings, and guaranteed provision

of supply staff to cover for teacher absences. That would have been helpful for education. That would have helped to improve standards.
The only policies that will help all our children are those designed to limit class sizes, provide the books and equipment that are needed, and replace crumbling schools. The Government could have introduced a Bill that did just that, because that is what is needed. However, the Government gave us this Bill which, once again, will undermine the education service and teachers, and not help one iota to improve standards.

Mr. Anthony Coombs: In supporting a very important measure for raising standards in schools over the next few years, I wish to refer to three points, two of which have already been mentioned. My hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) related an educational idyll of his constituency, and very impressive it was too. Educational standards in my hon. Friend's constituency have risen considerably over the past 12 years. However, that rise is not peculiar to his constituency. Spending per pupil has gone up by 40 per cent. over the past 12 years. We have already heard that the pupil-teacher ratio has also improved. Evidence shows a significant improvement—about a third—in the number of those who attain levels A to C in their GCSE results. There has been a significant improvement in the number of those attaining two or more A-levels. However, it must be said that there is improvement across the education spectrum.
I could take my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale to my constituency and show him a middle school which has spent £1 million on capital improvements over the past four years. I could take him to a secondary school in my constituency where the staying-on rate, which is a good index of educational achievement, has risen from 28 per cent. of the relevant age group to 55 per cent. over the past five years. Obviously, that success does not apply only to my constituency, where we have a relatively low-spending Conservative-controlled county council with, nevertheless, good examination results. It also applies to schools in inner-city areas. Over the past 12 years, great progress has been made under this Government in respect of educational standards and investment in education.
Secondly, my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Amos) said that we need no strictures from the Labour party on making education more parent-friendly. Here we have the Johnnies-come-lately who, when we were examining the Education Reform Act 1988 in Committee, opposed open enrolment which allowed parents to choose schools, certainly opposed the national curriculum because they thought that it was too centrist, and certainly did not like the idea of assessment. They now seem to think that they were all their own ideas all along and would like to adopt them with enthusiasm. I am absolutely certain that, in three years' time when we have another Conservative Government, Labour Members will still claim parentage of this measure, because they will then think that it will raise educational standards.
Thirdly, if we are to succeed in an economically competitive world in which technological advances are taking away the manual jobs that have been available for people who did not succeed at school, we have a duty to make sure that not only GCSE A to C achievers but every


pupil has a rigorous education and attains the necessary qualifications for a job. Staff at the employment training centres in my constituency say that the problem is that 40 per cent. of the people on their schemes have no basic education achievement, despite spending 11 years in the state school system. That is a fair cause for concern, at which the Bill is aimed.
A good education rests on a rigorous curriculum that is clearly understood, taught by well motivated teachers and has parents' support because they know what the curriculum is intended to achieve and what its results are likely to be.
The problem in Britain during the past 15 to 20 years has been that we have shied away from objective results in education. We have been too child-centred. We have not liked the idea of relative standards.
I can give an example of the problems that that attitude causes. I remember a parent coming to me about two years ago. She had just found out that her little nine-year-old, who had just gone into middle school, was two years behind on his reading age. I asked why she had not found out earlier. She said that she had asked the teachers and attended teacher sessions, but had been told that her son was fine. I asked whether she had received reports in the previous school. She said that she had never received any reports. Because that woman had no way of assessing what her child was doing, she had no idea of his achievement. The requirement in the Bill to publish results, including examination results, and provide written reports will help to alleviate that problem.
During the past 15 years, education has too often not been regarded as a body of knowledge to be imparted from teacher to pupils in an objective way. That was well put by Dr. Anthony Daniels earlier this year:
There was a supposedly libertarian revulsion against 'bourgeois' standards of grammatical language: … That two and two make four is considered an intolerable insult to human freedom.
He says that the trouble is:
scores are the young people I have encountered who left employment after a few days, simply because, on their own admission, they could not endure taking orders. They have never known what it is patiently to grow in skill and knowledge. They have been taught that what they already know and do is 'equally valid'.
That is the result of too great an adherence to a subjective, child-centred theory of education. The results are obvious.
Although at the top end of the scale more people than ever go to university—280,000 additional students every year in the past 12 years—a quarter of our seven-year-olds cannot give the result of the sum three multiplied by 10p plus four multiplied by 1p. Just in case anyone does not know, the answer is 34p.
The National Foundation for Educational Research in England and Wales shows that too many of our seven-year-olds cannot achieve a satisfactory standard of reading. [Interruption.] I am referring to education methods. The bottom range of ability in the population is often affected by the lack of rigour in the education system.
Just as the Education Reform Act 1988 led, as Robin Wilson, the headmaster of Trinity school said recently in The Times Educational Supplement, to a phenomenally rapid and healthy change in schools, so the Bill will be crucial in bringing about improved standards in the classroom.
We have heard much debate tonight about whether the data on a school's performance should be given on a raw basis or a value-added basis. The reason why I support using raw data is not practical but philosophical. Through my associations with schools, I have found that if one concentrates on value-added data and takes into account what pupils knew when they entered a school, too often their basic education problems are obscured. Too often it institutionalises low achievement and therefore leads to unreasonably low expectations among teachers for the pupils whom they teach. That produces a downward educational spiral which it is difficult to stop.
For a long time I have been associated with a school called Perry Common, which is in the constituency of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker). It is true that no less than 40 per cent. of the entry at age 11 have some special educational needs. I do not know whether that is due to their basic level of ability, poor teaching in the previous school or whatever. The problem is that because teachers know that, they have a disincentive to aim for the highest possible standard among the children they teach. That is not to say that the teachers are unprofessional. They are a good lot, but their standards and expectations are lower than they otherwise would be.
We did some interviews recently for a new head teacher. There were 40 applicants from all over Britain, of whom we interviewed 10. It was significant that all 10 spoke about the low expectations that teachers at the school seemed to have of pupils. The publication of raw data will act as an antidote to that problem and maintain the highest expectations. However, that does not mean that I am in complete agreement with what the Bill proposes should be published. In some schools BTEC is an important part of the curriculum, and the Government should consider whether those results should be published too.

Mr. Morley: The hon. Gentleman says that he has reservations about the publication of raw data, although they seem to me to be limited. Will he take into consideration the fact that there is great danger in publishing league tables produced on the basis of raw data? Unless the method by which data are compiled is taken into account, schools will discourage borderline pupils from sitting examinations. If the school ensures that its best pupils go in for exams, it will have a higher percentage pass rate. In a league table, that factor may hide a poorly performing school. It might look good in a league table, but the school could be under-achieving. How would it improve teachers' expectations if pupils of average ability were discouraged from sitting examinations?

Mr. Coombs: There is a variety of answers to that question. The main one is that I have more faith in the professionalism of teachers and their ambitions for their pupils than the hon. Gentleman appears to have. Most teachers want their children to improve and show what they can do in examinations. Therefore, teachers will enter pupils for examinations for which they think that the pupils are fit. That is why I argue that BTEC should be included in the examination results which the Bill requires schools to publish. Many schools do well in BTEC and do not lower standards or expectations as a result.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham was right to say that, under the Bill, there will be 6,000 inspections a


year rather than the measly 150 full inspections that have taken place in the past. My attitude to inspections in schools stems from my experience as chairman of schools in Birmingham for two years. I set up a working party on standards. It was sad that the Labour party did not want to co-operate in the working party, at least initially, because it felt that it might have to "put the finger", as it put it, on schools which were under-performing.
The problem with inspections in Birmingham was, first, that they were too rare to be of any real use. Full inspections, which will happen every four years under the Bill, happened every 20 years if one was lucky under the old system. The second problem was that the results of the inspections were rarely known outside the education department. They were not conveyed adequately to governors and if the governors received them, they were couched in such jargon that the governors could not take action on them.
Thirdly, the inspections were never discussed by the education committee—except when I became chairman and set up the working party. That is why we set it up. It is very sad that, when we lost power in 1984, the first thing that the Labour did was to abolish the standards working party, so the inspections were never discussed. The Bill requires the results of inspections to be made available to parents through governing bodies. Because of local management of schools, governing bodies will be able to do something about them, so inspections will be extremely valuable.
The reservations about inspections that have been expressed in the debate have not been objective and do not carry a great deal of weight. It appears that I have more faith in school governors than have many Opposition Members. School governors will be going for the best and most objective inspections, because that will add to the school's credibility. If inspections are sufficiently rigorous—with raw data or not—well motivated teachers, with good head teachers, will find that they are an incentive to improve standards in schools rather than the opposite.
I know of a school where only 6 per cent. of students passed the GCSE level with a grade between A and C. That is appalling. The national average is 30 per cent. Faced with those results, the teachers did not put their heads down and hope that the problem went away; they got stuck in. That proportion was built up to 12 per cent. in one year.
The Opposition have said that the publication of raw data will act as a disincentive, but, in most cases, it will act as a significant incentive for educational improvement.
Therefore, the Bill will give parents the knowledge that they need to become an effective part of the partnership between parent and teacher upon which all good education is based. As an extension of the parenthood charter, the Bill proves that the Government—through measures that they have already taken, such as open enrolment, local management of schools, greater control of governing bodies for parents and now through the publication of exam results, better school reports and better inspections —represent the party that takes parents' interests seriously. That is the way to better standards in education.

Mrs. Rosie Barnes: First, I shall discuss that part of the Bill which deals with testing and the publication of results. As I have made clear on the Floor

of the House and in letters to Ministers, I am not opposed to testing, as long as it is done sensitively and used properly. I spent a considerable amount of time observing the testing of seven-year-olds in schools in my constituency. The tests were carefully designed and appropriate for seven-year-olds. By and large the youngsters seemed to be enjoying the tests immensely, and I felt that there was much advantage in them.
I was worried about the length of time that the tests were taking and the demands that they made of teachers because of the lack of additional classroom support. I am glad that that problem is being taken seriously.
I have been concerned about the way in which some of the test results have been used almost immediately in the political arena. Although I do not wish to focus wholly on the testing of seven-year-olds, the way in which those tests have been used has much relevance for how we use testing in general. I was worried about the dramatic announcement that 25 per cent. of seven-year-olds are illiterate and about the equally dramatic announcement by the Opposition spokesman. The Opposition were castigating lack of resources and the Government were implying that teaching methods left much to be desired. That may be the case, but it is certainly not proven. It is not fair to children or to teachers to dismiss 25 per cent. of seven-year-olds as illiterate.
The important thing is that both young children and those in secondary schools are on a learning curve and are making progress. Many children, who were only six when they took the test and were perhaps on the brink of achieving that, would be illiterate according to those criteria.
My son is six and will be taking the tests in the coming year. I have observed his reading progress. As with walking, talking and many other developments, children often make steady progress followed by a great surge. My six-and-a-half-year-old would just about pass that test now, whereas two months ago he would not. What matters is not where he was on the day he took the test, but the fact that he is making steady progress and can be expected to read confidently and with comprehension in the next year or so. That is the important thing and that is what must be addressed. Dismissing children as illiterate because of a fixed test on one day is a great mistake.
Crude league tables, based on raw data, have a number of major disadvantages. I have listened carefully to Conservative Members' arguments that such tables are effective and valuable. One hon. Member said that as much information as possible should be given to parents, not partial information. That information should include some idea of the standard of the child to start with—it is not merely a question of ensuring that results are assesed fairly and meaningfully—as that is important for parents of children with certain qualities when they decide where to send their child.
When I was considering the choice of school for one of my children, who was assessed as band 2 under the local education authority system, I looked at the league tables differently. I was interested to know which school in my area did well with band 2 children—at which schools such children went on to achieve. I chose the school with those criteria in mind and I have not been disappointed.
The results of the different schools were interesting. In many schools in my area, comparing intake with GCSE results and subsequently A-level results, band 1 children went on to do remarkably well, but band 2 and 3 children


disappeared without trace. I was not interested in those schools. I wanted a school where band 2 children were achieving, expectations were high and they were making progress. That is an important consideration.
Parents of children with special needs need to know where they will be well catered for. That may never show up on the sort of league tables that we are talking about.
There is a danger that the Bill will encourage some schools, although certainly not all, to be rigorous in excluding pupils who they think might have a downgrading effect on their league tables, or that schools might discourage children with only a marginal chance of succeeding in an examination, not allowing them to take it because it will depress the school's results. That is not pie in the sky. In my area, two comprehensive schools have been vying in the local popularity stakes for some time. Although it is going back a considerable time, when the results of one school were analysed on the same basis as the results of the other it became clear that the school had presented its statistics in a misleading way. It also became clear that the numbers of pupils allowed to take some exams were different. That is of particular importance.
Falling standards and substandard school performance must be identified and tackled. The raw data will not necessarily give that information. We are looking not for raw results or a fixed result, but for progress, development and what schools have achieved with the pupils in their area. I hope that the Government will think again before deciding to publish raw data without any additional information. I recognise that we could get into a confusion of innumerable value-added dimensions, but there must be a balance between sensible, additional information on which to make an informed judgment and obscuring the important results.
The inspectorate has proved to be a critical aspect of the debate. Before the Government's proposals on how the inspectorate might operate in future, there seemed to be general agreement that inspectors were trusted and respected and had integrity and objectivity. So far as I can gather, the only criticism of inspectors is that there are not enough of them, so they cannot produce as many thorough, formal reports as desirable. Their advice to Ministers and schools has generally been accepted as invaluable and of the highest calibre. I fail to see how the new system can be an improvement on that.
Schools are to employ an inspecting agency. Educational consultants will vie to be chosen for that task. Those people, living in the real world of the free market, of competition, failed businesses and bankruptcies, as human beings, will look for renewed contracts and recommendations to other schools that they are the sort of inspecting agency with which a school likes to deal. There may not be consistency, but that anxiety pales into insignificance beside the considerable worry that the new system will be fraught with temptation to load, flatter or mislead in presenting a report. Obviously, word will go round that certain agencies are particularly critical and venomous while others are softer and gentler. That is what will happen in the real world, and we must resist it at all costs.
The hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mr. Coombs) said that governors would exercise far more sense and, given a level playing field, I am sure that they would. But

governors, too, will be making decisions in a tough climate. Many of them face critical financial decisions. No more than a couple of weeks ago, I had a letter from the parent governors of one of my children's schools about opening a special fund to make good the shortfall in the main budget. The school is in Lewisham which, the Minister will be aware, has particular financial problems, so perhaps it is not entirely typical. Nevertheless, governors who have to perform a difficult juggling act to make ends meet and who are looking for some approval for their decisions may be unduly biased.
Nobody can fail to agree with some of the Government's recommendations. At present, two out of five local education authorities do not systematically inspect and seven out of 10 do not publish results. We all know of the extraordinary inspection frequency, which results from the present level of the inspectorate, of a 200-year cycle for infant schools and a 60-year cycle for secondary schools. That is nonsense. Any intention to make formal inspection a four-yearly event must be right and must be applauded. There is no argument about that.
There is argument about who should carry out the inspection and who is best suited to it. I believe that a bolstered, more independent HMI would be the best vehicle. We understand from the review that we can read about only in leaked reports to The Independent that
a number of head teachers and principals to whom we spoke said that the characteristics of independence, objectivity and breadth of experience … were best exemplified by HMI.
If that is the case, I fail to see why we are lurching off at a tangent and appointing a separate set of bodies which may lack consistency to do this vital job.
I do not share some of the anxieties raised by Opposition Members about lay members of inspectorates. Education must be examined by people other than simply the providers. It is easy to get too immersed in education practice and too involved in one's own educational philosophy to make an objective assessment of what is happening in a given school. I do not object to a degree of laymen representation, but I have great anxieties about the changes in the Bill.
We are told that the idea of expanding HMI has been dismissed because, it is claimed, the inspectorate could not deal with the 8,000 school assessments each year. Yet, paradoxically, we understand that it will be able to monitor those 8,000 inspections by other inspections teams each year. That seems extraordinary and something of a duplication of tasks. The lack of logic in that must be apparent to all. We can only plead that the necessary resources for it to conduct those 8,000 reviews a year will be made available. That is the only safeguard in the current form of the proposals against the possibly skewed results from inspection teams with a natural eye on their future commissions and business viability.
All the inspection in the world, however perfectly done, is academic, as is testing, if there are no means of following up the recommendations, tackling the weaknesses or making good any shortfalls. A few months ago, a constituent came to see me with a boy of 14 who could not read. She was a working-class mother who had been worried about that since she had become aware of his reading problem when he was seven. Each year various schools and teachers told her, "We'll give it another year and see how it goes." Now he is 14 and still cannot read. If problems relating to particular teachers or pupils are


identified within schools or in subject areas within schools, they must be dealt with. Otherwise, the whole exercise is simply academic.
We recognise that there are shortfalls in the educational system relating to nursery provision, special needs provision and the number of educational psychologists in post. There are also teacher shortages in certain subjects and in certain geographical areas where teachers are unwilling to apply for vacancies. Without tackling those fundamental problems, the rest of our debate will be of little value towards improving standards in our schools
.
The shortcomings appear to have been diagnosed only recently and I fear that there is a tendency to go for alternative forms of educational practice that may be no more tried and tested than those which we are leaving behind. There has been a lurch back to the blackboard style of teaching, with all children facing the same direction, having the same lesson at the same time. That change, together with the abolition of project work in schools, is a dangerous move and must be resisted. Education does not have to be miserable to be effective. A good teacher can make education enjoyable and effective.
I was alarmed to hear one Conservative Member say that education had become too child-centred. What an extraordinary statement. I accept that we must look to the outside world and the end product as well as considering what the child experiences during his school years. However, to be effective, education must be child-centred. I accept that some education has been ideologically based and I do not defend that. However, when pupils work according to their own ability, in different ways and on different subjects in the same classroom, that is extremely effective—as long as the teacher is good.
I have said on many occasions, and no doubt I shall do so many times again, that education depends on good teachers who are well motivated and well paid. They must enjoy the right status and they must feel that they are regarded with considerable esteem by society. That is not the case now.
A small number of teachers caused a great deal of misery for the rest of the profession when they lurched into industrial action in the 1980s. My older son, who is 18, suffered three years of disruption to his secondary education because of that industrial action. I recognise that many of his friends from less fortunate backgrounds have never recovered. They do not have the type of parents who can pick up the pieces and who can say, "Have another year or two at school to make good." Those children have been failed for life by those three years of industrial action, and I do not defend it. However, I hope that the pay review body will redress the imbalance in teachers' pay and that marked improvements will occur.
I conclude by repeating an anecdote that I recently heard at a prize-giving day in a school in my constituency. The headmaster told us about a school in America where the results were extremely poor. Its headmaster decided that something had to be done, so he selected a group of pupils and a group of teachers. He told them that they were earmarked for special achievement, he gave them extra resources and extra study time. The expectation that they would do well was evident to all. The pupils went on to do very well in their subsequent examinations and everyone was pleased.
The teachers held a small party to celebrate and, after the pupils had left, the headmaster said, "You must realise that I did not select those pupils according to any

particular criteria. They were selected at random from the rest of the pupils." When the teachers heard that, they congratulated themselves wholeheartedly and said, "Well, we did extremely well if you did not pick the best to achieve those results." The headmaster replied, "Well, you were not selected either as especially good teachers. You were selected at random from the teaching staff."
That story shows what can be achieved when the expectations of teachers and pupils are high. As the education debate proceeds, we must examine each issue according to such expectations.

Mr. David Evennett: I welcome the opportunity to speak in this important debate. As someone who came through the state school system and benefited from the investment that previous taxpayers spent on our schools, I believe that it is vital that today's children and their parents get value for money from the present state school system.
I believe passionately in the state school system, and I want the very best for our children and our country. A great deal of work is done in our schools, and we must not underestimate it. However, there are also many problems. Despite the vast increases in expenditure on education in real terms recently, the public are not satisfied with the performance of our schools. Pupils are dissatisfied, and industry and commerce remain somewhat dismayed at the results from our schools. Therefore, something must be done.
In the past few years, the Government have introduced a number of beneficial educational reforms, which will definitely improve matters. I believe that the Bill continues that process. It should and will be welcomed by the vast majority of people, and it proves that the Government are continuing their endeavours to improve our schools and our education system.
The Conservative party believes in choice and opportunity for people in terms of how they spend their money and their time. We believe in providing people with the opportunity to utilise their talents to the full. Education is a passport to a full and fulfilling life. However, in some schools, in some areas, many children are being denied that passport. That is unacceptable to the Conservative party, and further action must be taken to improve the situation. I am sure that the Bill will improve the standard and quality of educational provision.
I must preface my remarks about school performance by stating that school provision in general is extremely good in my borough of Bexley. We have a varied mixture of good schools—grammar, technical, comprehensive and single sex. We also have a bilateral school in Erith in my constituency. Therefore, parents in my area have a true choice. I admit that our schools are so good that parents from neighbouring boroughs such as Greenwich, Lewisham and Bromley want to send children to our schools in Bexley. My hon. Friend the Minister knows only too well that that desire has caused concern to parents in Bexley. We have urged him to legislate to reverse the Greenwich judgment, so that priority is again given to children of our borough.
Although I welcome the Bill, I fear that publication of performance tables could make our problems in Bexley worse. Unless the Greenwich judgment is overturned, parents in Greenwich and other neighbouring boroughs


—once they see how good and how well our schools perform—will be even more enthusiastic in their attempts to get places in Bexley schools. That would be detrimental to children in my constituency, unfair to parents and unacceptable to me. I hope that the Minister will note that.
On a positive note, I welcome the fact that schools will have to disclose their GCSE and A-level results. That is a big step forward, because parents will then be able to use examination results to challenge schools to improve. The educational establishment likes to keep up an old-fashioned mystique on such matters, and I believe that that establishment is one of the problems we face. It believes that it knows best and what is good for us and for our children. It believes that it alone can analyse, comment and advise.
It is amazing how dominant the educational establishment has been for so long, which is totally unacceptable. Today the Opposition revealed themselves as dinosaurs because they acted as mere apologists for the old established order.
Just as the old order has fallen in eastern Europe, so it is falling in educational establishment circles in Britain. There is a new mood afoot. Parents will no longer accept being fobbed off by the so-called experts. After all, parents are concerned about their children. They have a right in today's society to as much information as is available.
Let us remember that parents are making choices about their children and their future. They want to know how school examination results compare, about the level of truancy and about the staying-on rate after 16. Many parents also want to know what pupils do and where they go after leaving school—how many go into further education, to university or into employment.
The facts that will now be provided will give parents the missing information which will allow them to judge a school overall. Good schools will have nothing to fear. Weak schools will be encouraged to improve. Children and education will be the winners. The idea that information should be hidden from or denied to parents, as apparently advocated today by the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) and the Labour party, is amazing. It is also insulting to parents.

Mr. Straw: rose—

Mr. Evennett: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman shortly. He spoke for a long time.
Most parents of children at poorer schools already know about those schools, though they do not have the information to confront the governors, teachers and heads to urge them of the need to improve the school.

Mr. Straw: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will look at the Official Report tomorrow and tell me where I said that information should be hidden from parents. At no stage did I say that, nor do we believe it.

Mr. Evennett: The hon. Gentleman implied it in what he said during his very long speech.
Parents need more information about their children. The jargon, the mystique and the experts have dominated in the recent past. As a public service, schools should provide each year a written report on each child's progress. That would be helpful to parents in the task of continuing their children's education at home. Opposition Members

seem constantly to forget that parents, not teachers, are the primary educators of children. The teacher is the professional, so the teacher should report on the child's progress. The aim must be to help the child and keep the parents fully informed and advised. That is why the reports will be most helpful.
Inspection has come in for much discussion today as a major part of the Bill. Inspection in schools must be considered a vital part of the education system. It is essential if we are to know how schools, teachers and pupils are progressing, highlighting areas of concern and problems, while praising and congratulating areas where good practice and work is being carried out. A radical reform of HMI is long overdue.
As a former teacher with a wife who is a teacher, and as one who was a school governor throughout the 1970s and into the early 1980s, I have always been surprised and disappointed at the way in which most schools are infrequently inspected. Educational fashions change. Over the years, teaching fashions have changed and have become less formal. The results were often not good, yet only in a few severe cases did HMI go in and make an impact with its report.
Investigations are not meant to condemn but to evaluate, suggest and recommend. Yet with such infrequent investigations, there is often considerable disadvantage for the schools and the children. Four-yearly inspections must be good news; I warmly welcome that part of the Bill.
A result of the Government's proposals will be more inspections and reports. HMI will still have a vital role to play, despite the remarks of the hon. Member for Blackburn. Indeed, it will have an enhanced role. It will have a new independent statutory role, not only to inspect and produce reports, as now, but to advise and monitor the new system for schools with delegated budgets.
There will, of course, continue to be local council inspectors to inspect schools without delegated budgets. Regrettably, over the years local inspections have varied widely in quality, for many reasons. But to the Labour party, it seems that the solution always lies in having more ex-teachers, more ex-educationists and more establishment figures who alone, Labour thinks, are capable of doing the necessary inspections in our schools.
I find that view absolutely amazing. We need a breath of fresh air in school inspections. We must look at the standards and work in schools from an objective standpoint, and that should involve some outsiders, which means non-educationists, looking, inspecting and reporting. As I say, we must introduce a breath of fresh air into the inspection system. So long as HMI monitor and control the standards of the inspections, the changes proposed will bring many positive benefits. The most important will be better education provision for our children and the nation.
During the last five years, we have highlighted the problems and brought forward many reforms in the schools system, to the benefit of education and the children. It is vital that our children have the best possible education to allow them not only to have the best possible standard of life and maximise their opportunities, but for the benefit of Britain, so that we can compete in the world in trade and industry.
We must not simply retain the old-fashioned, traditional ways. It is clear from the remarks of Labour Members that they do not like change, even though they


have no ideas about what should be done to improve the education system. They are mere apologists for the existing system. They believe that it will be fine so long as more money is put into it. That is clearly not the solution to the problems of education in Britain. Over the years, more money has been put into education, but regrettably in certain areas little has been achieved. More money was spent in ILEA than in any other authority, yet the results were a disaster.
A basic amount of money must be provided, and the Conservatives have put more money than ever in real terms into education. We need an improved education system, and the Bill will go a long way to achieving that for the benefit of our children.

Mr. John McAllion: It is said that those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad, and it is clear that Tory Ministers are mad. If they seriously believe that in the context of the present constitutional crisis between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom they can introduce what are crude and dangerous league tables into Scottish education—and do so by means of a single clause tacked on at the end of an English and Welsh Bill which is otherwise wholly irrelevant to Scotland—they have taken leave of their collective senses. They will have to pay a further political price for their insensitive treatment of Scotland.
Some hon. Members believe that the Tories have got themselves into a spot of bother in Scotland, and we are not referring to the occasional by-election disaster such as occurred in Kincardine and Deeside recently, or even to the reduction of Scottish Tory representation in the House to the completely inadequate level of nine. We are talking about a spectacular slide in support for Conservatism in Scotland, which has taken the Tories from the high point of being the majority party in Scotland in the mid-1950s to the point today when they are on the edge of extinction as a serious and significant force in Scotland.
One might think that, in those circumstances, Ministers would begin to ask themselves a few basic questions, such as, "Where have we gone wrong in Scotland? What are we doing or not doing in Scotland that is alienating from us our natural Scottish supporters?" It is not for me to help Scottish Tories in those circumstances, but I suggest to them that it may have something to do with the way in which the Government treat Scotland in legislative terms. The Government treat Scotland as an afterthought and something to be tacked on at the end when the serious business has already been dealt with.
I can imagine the scenario that must have taken place before the Bill was introduced. A team of Education Ministers will have been locked up together for days or even weeks on end to thrash out the details of the Bill. They will have gone into detail about Her Majesty's inspectorate for England and for Wales and about the powers of the chief inspector for England and for Wales. They will have discussed the supply of information for grant-maintained, state and private schools in England and Wales. Then, just when they thought that they had finished and were about to leave the room, up pipes a small Scottish voice in the corner which says, "What about Scotland?" The Government had forgotten all about Scotland.
The Secretary of State was so ignorant that he believed that the Bill applied to Scotland. He was unaware that 20 of the 21 clauses and all the schedules had nothing to do with Scotland. In answer to a question from me, he suggested that the Bill affected all areas of the United Kingdom in the same way, with additional provision for Scotland in clause 17. He appeared to be completely at sea again when I asked why primary schools in Scotland were excluded from the Bill, and did not seem to know that Scottish primary schools had been excluded.
It is contemptible for a Government to behave in that way about an important and constituent part of the United Kingdom. They treat Scotland as no more than a mere appendage of England, and seek to impose on Scotland an educational agenda that is irrelevant to the real needs of Scottish education. Indeed, the Bill is aimed primarily at England, rather than at England and Wales.
The Bill is contemptible in practical terms because, when it is debated in Committee, there may be only one Scottish Member on the Committee. The Labour party will ensure that Scottish Labour Members are represented, but will the Government ensure that there is Scottish representation in the Conservative party? The Minister of State, Scottish Office was present during the opening speeches of this debate but he has since disappeared and has not returned since. Nor is he likely to wind up the debate as I understand that the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Fallon), or some other English Minister will do so.
In any case, a concurrent Bill will involve the Scottish Office Minister, so there is unlikely to be a Scottish Minister in the Committee. There are unlikely to be any Scottish Conservative Back Benchers either, not only because there are so few of them but because none of them has participated in this debate, apart from a brief intervention by the hon. and learned member for Perth and Kinross (Sir N. Fairbairn) that could hardly have been described as serious participation.

Mr. Straw: He was drunk.

Mr. McAllion: He may have been drunk, but his participation was not serious.
A Scottish Labour Member could find himself isolated on the Committee and virtually speaking to the walls of the Committee Room, because he will get no reasonable or logical answers from Ministers who have no responsibility for Scottish education and will be unable to deal with the criticisms and questions which that Labour Member may raise.
For the House to deal with Scotland in that manner shows nothing but contempt for Scotland and the Scottish people. Clause 17 should be dealt with separately, if not by a Bill in its own right then at least by the Scottish Grand Committee, which should sit separately to consider clause 17, as it applies only to our country. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) will apply for an early sitting of the Scottish Grand Committee to deal with clause 17. He will have the support not only of Labour Members but of all Scottish Members who are genuinely concerned about Scottish education and keen to see it debated properly in the House.
Like Scottish plays, Scottish clauses will become famous in Westminster and a Scottish clause will now be added to every Bill to deal with Scotland as an afterthought. Clause 17 provides for the publication of


crude league tables showing exam results, truancy rates and the destination of pupils once they have left school in Scotland. Ministers claim that the clause is designed simply to convey more information to parents and give parents a choice about the educational future of their children. That is so much bunkum, as every Labour Member knows. The tables are designed to exclude from comparison all the factors that influence examination results, particularly the social class make-up of a school.
It has long been known in education circles that a clear correlation exists between social class background and examination success. League tables that do not take that correlation into consideration distort reality and are inaccurate. The league tables published under the Bill will distort and be inaccurate and, to that extent, they will be useless as a guide to parents on how to choose a school.
Much more important is the use to which those league tables will be put. Parents will naturally clamour to get their kids into schools at the top of the performance tables. Those schools will then be in the fortunate position of being able to pick and choose between applicants. They will be aware that the reason for their educational success in the first place was the high proportion of their intake coming from social classes 1 and 2. Therefore, they will be predisposed to choose applicants from those social classes, thereby reinforcing their examination success and leading them on to greater success than ever.
The Bill will reinforce the marked differences that now exist between schools in terms of the social class make-up of school populations. Successful schools will have a higher proportion of pupils from social classes 1 and 2. Pupil rolls will be full to bursting and staff will be of the highest standard because of the large school rolls. Additional pupils bring additional resources, which will create yet more success.
The other schools will have fewer pupils from social classes 1 and 2. Fewer pupils will attend the schools and they will thus have fewer teachers. The schools will have fewer resources and a narrower range of subject options and, as a result, their relative failure will be reinforced. The old senior-secondary and junior-secondary divide will be re-established in Scotland, like the old grammar-secondary modern divide that used to exist in England and Wales. Tory Governments have always been about creating a two-tier educational system.

Mr. Pawsey: indicated dissent.

Mr. McAllion: The hon. Gentleman shakes his head in disagreement. I refer him to a pamphlet that was published in the mid-1980s by an obscure group of Back-Bench MPs called the No Turning Back group. The pamphlet was called "Save our Schools" and its authors included the right hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Lilley), who is now the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Portillo), who is now the Minister of State, Department of the Environment, the hon. Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh), who is Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth), who is the Scottish Office education spokesman, the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth), who is now at the Department of Trade and Industry, the hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Fallon), who is sitting on the

Front Bench now, and the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Chope), who is now a junior Transport Minister.
The pamphlet described the system of comprehensive education under local education authority control as a "monolithic system" that was impervious and insensitive to parents. It said that it was an impossible system, inside which able teachers had become imprisoned—a system that thwarted those who genuinely care about pupils and education. It referred disparagingly to "comprehensive conformity" and bemoaned the departure of grammar schools, which it described as having taught rigorously, maintained discipline and specialised in the production of excellence.
That was the attitude of those hon. Members when they were obscure Back Benchers and I am convinced that it remains their attitude now that they are Ministers at the very heart of the Government.

Mr. Fallon: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. May we return to his attitude? Is he arguing —as he seemed to be before he lurched off into the quotation—that no examination result should be made available to Scottish parents? Is that the position of the Scottish Labour party as distinct from the English Labour party?

Mr. McAllion: The Minister is naturally anxious to get me off the subject of the "Save our Schools" campaign, the No Turning Back group and his views on comprehensive education. I shall answer his question directly: we do not believe that the information should be denied to parents, but we believe that crude performance tables should not be used to distort the choices that parents make between different schools in Scotland, as would be the case if the Bill were implemented. The Minister's attitude reveals a clear determination to break up the system of comprehensive education in this country and replace it with something different.
When one of the Scottish education Bills was in Committee earlier this year and the Minister of State, Scottish Office—who is no longer present—was leading for the Government, he said that the Tory party was the revolutionary party of Scotland. The Secretary of State for Education and Science echoed those sentiments today when he referred to the Labour party as the conservative party with a small "c", and to the Conservative party as the truly radical revolutionary party. It did not seem to matter to him that the last right winger to claim to be a revolutionary in European history was Adolf Hitler. The Conservative party has taken on the mantle of right-wing revolutionaries.

Mr. Donald Dewar: Too subtle.

Mr. McAllion: It may be too subtle, but it may be too true.
All those years ago, the right-wing revolutionaries sketched out in their pamphlet a series of three critical reforms that they said would dismantle the comprehensive education system, all of which the Government have implemented in their legislation. First, there was to be the creation of a new sort of school. In Scotland it is called the self-governing school; I do not know what it is called in England and Wales. Secondly, there was to be direct funding of those schools by central Government, which would not only free them from local education control, but


allow the Government to favour them over schools that remained under local education authority control. Thirdly, there was to be the creation of an internal education market through the publication of examination results to allow parents to choose between schools and decide, through the marketplace, which schools would survive and which would fail.
Unfortunately for the Minister and his friends, the revolution never got off the ground in Scotland. I served on the Committee that considered the Bill on school boards which was introduced in the first year of this Parliament. At the time, great claims were made about the Bill. It was said that it would lead to tremendous parental power and parental involvement in education, but it ended in disarray. There was widespread apathy at this year's elections to school boards in Scotland. In parts of Scotland such as Grampian, up to 40 per cent. of schools received no parental nominations to their boards because parents did not want to be involved in what was essentially a foreign idea imposed on them by a Government based in Westminster.
The second stage of the revolution involved a Bill to introduce self-governing schools. I remember that the hon. Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh), now Under-Secretary of State for Industry and Consumer Affairs, was confident about the Bill's implications. In Committee he framed what he called the "Gainsborough question" asking how many schools in Scotland would opt out. He kept demanding that question of the Labour spokesmen because he was confident that, under the legislation, plenty of schools in Scotland would opt out.
So confident were Ministers that the Scottish Office Minister with responsibility for education authorised the expenditure of £12,510 to produce 12,000 copies of a booklet on how to become a self-governing school, but that money, time and effort were wasted because not one school in Scotland has opted out. The Under-Secretary of State has the answer to his question, as do the Government. Scotland is not interested in opting out of local education authority control.
The Bill relates to the third of the critical reforms: the publication of league tables to allow schools to be set against schools, and the operation of the internal education market. It forms the third part of what was initially a three-part revolution. However, as the first two parts of the revolution have collapsed in disarray in Scotland, it can hardly be argued that it is necessary to impose the third part of the revolution on a country which simply does not want it.
Publication of primary school examination results in Scotland have been excluded from the Bill. Reform of the inspectorate, which formed a large part of tonight's debate, is also excluded from Scotland. The self-governing schools reforms have fallen flat on their face in Scotland. School boards in Scotland have been increasingly ignored by uninterested parents. The last thing that we need now is the importation of an English idea that we in Scotland do not want to know about.
It is time that the true education agenda was addressed in Scotland—the lack of statutory nursery provision, which exists not only in Scotland, but elsewhere in the United Kingdom, the crumbling buildings in which too many of our children in Scotland have to receive their education, the chronic underfunding of equipment and materials in Scottish schools and the oversized and composite classes. All those problems must be tackled by

a Government who genuinely support the system of education in Scotland. This Government do not, but the next Government will, because it will be a Labour Government.

Mr. Andrew Mitchell: I have listened with great care to all the speeches in today's debate and have concluded that the Bill is better than I thought it was when I entered the Chamber. It is an excellent Bill which, outside the House, will be seen as a measure of great common sense and a necessary and important addition to the education reforms that the Government have already implemented.
The hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), although he made a good debating speech, showed that he did not oppose much of the Bill. He reserved his strongest attack for the level of the Government's education advertising budget. However, it is clear that, apart from a good bit of 1960s stuff from the Opposition and a truly unrevised speech from the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor)—who demonstrated that he is a genuine socialist—opposition to the measure is pretty thin.
I have a specific reason for welcoming tonight's measure. In March, a number of my hon. Friends and I introduced a Bill on the publication of exam results in which the hon. Member for Blackburn was kind enough to take a small interest and to which he was not entirely opposed. The Bill was supported by many people, but, unfortunately, one Friday an Opposition Whip consigned it to oblivion by objecting to it. Today, the Government have brought back the entire contents of that Bill, about which I am delighted.
Since then, the support of the hon. Member for Blackburn for the principle of the Bill has increased. Recently, in a front-page interview in The Guardian, the hon. Gentleman was reported to have said:
Let 1,000 league tables bloom",
thus demonstrating that he is not opposed in principle to the measures discussed tonight.
Two arguments are advanced against the league table principle. The first is that parents cannot be trusted to interpret the information satisfactorily. When we introduced our ten-minute Bill, I said that such attitudes were odiously patronising to the majority of parents, and everything that we have heard since supports that view. I do not think that parents want to hear excuses about the performance of schools: they want to see them reformed and made better to give greater opportunities to their children.
In a patronising letter to a local newspaper, Nottinghamshire education authority stated:
Raw exam results unrefined for socio-economic factors give a false impression of performance.
That is absolute nonsense. Even in Albania, socialists no longer believe such rubbish.
The other argument advanced against league tables—it has been made tonight—is that they will do nothing to help sink schools. However, league tables will at least identify the depth of the difficulties of those schools which means that we can place much greater focus on them. My right hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North (Sir R. Boyson) makes an important point when he speaks about the Gujerati community in his constituency. That community does not have many inbuilt advantages, but


achieves well above average results. That demonstrates that there is little correlation between home background and intelligence.
Parents want objectivity and do not want subjective results that have been tampered with and to which socio-economic factors have been added. They do not want results that have been massaged to suggest that there is no such thing as a good or a bad school, just schools. Parents know perfectly well that that is not true. They also know from gossip at the school gate the subjective pluses and minuses in schools and are able to consider those in interpreting examination results. That enables them to see whether a school is good at art or music, to define its degree of community awareness and determine its emphasis on values and so on. Parents have a right to receive detailed information based on the objective results of schools. Such a measure was not dreamed up by the Conservative party. I responded to the wishes and representations of my constituents in Nottinghamshire and my ten-minute Bill received widespread and positive support.
I know that the Secretary of State has carefully considered the argument by the Audit Commission about added value. I accept his point that he does not want results tampered with and made more socio-economic but wants them raw. That is the right approach. However, I hope that he will accept that there is a powerful case for value-added information as a second stage. Value-added information will enable us to demonstrate the improvements in local schools that have been achieved one compared with another and also against the national average.
When the system envisaged in the Bill is up and running, I hope that the Secretary of State will seriously consider promoting, not necessarily through legislation, the concepts in the Audit Commission report. Such added-value information is important not only to parents but to teachers, because it will enable them to see how well they are doing.
I agree with the Secretary of State that the system of inspection envisaged in the Bill is a great improvement on the current system. Above all, this is a matter of management. Perhaps it is worth considering further a Bill presented some time ago which included a proposal for an education audit commission. The methodology of the Audit Commission and the way in which it subcontracts work and co-ordinates and polices proper assessment are important. The commission has a proven track record in this area and although it could not itself carry out the work that I have suggested, it provides some useful pointers to the way ahead.
Some hon. Members have spoken about "croneyism" between head teachers and inspectors—the fear that a school would tend to stick with a group of inspectors which produced a favourable report. It is incumbent on the Government to make clear in Committee why they believe that there are no grounds for such fears. They should at least quieten existing fears.
What we have so far heard about the new system of inspection does not make it sufficiently clear that it will give the necessary independence and will accept the purchaser-provider split that we have put in place in the

national health service and the enabler-provider split in local government. There must be a clear differential so that inspections can be respected as impartial and accurate.
If the Secretary of State is not convinced by that argument, I urge him to accept the need for tight guidelines on inspection and a clearly defined code of practice, because such safeguards would make it clear that the fears that I have expressed would not materialise. The Secretary of State has spoken about the composition of the inspection teams. Those teams should be a healthy mix. There is bound to be a role for management consultant skills, to which the Audit Commission frequently refers, and for the value-for-money skills, which it has. I am sure that the mix of inspection teams envisaged by the Secretary of State is absolutely right.
The Bill undoubtedly extends choice and opportunity for parents. It builds on the changes that we have already made and on the citizens charter process. When the Prime Minister said recently that the trendies have had their say and their day, there were cheers in many houses all over the country as people welcomed what he had said. Schools and teachers must be more answerable to parents. I am delighted that the Government intend to publish truancy rates and school leavers' destinations, because such information will give a useful steer to parents. It is an excellent idea that lay assessors will now appear on appeals committees.
The process of schools opting out of LEA control will continue with remarkable intensity. Perhaps the Minister can say whether his Department will be able to cope with that flood after the election.
The Minister should also give a hearty vote of thanks to governors. On a recent—greatly appreciated—visit to my constituency, he spent the best part of the day with teachers and governors at two schools and met all six headmasters in the secondary sector. The teachers and the staff were delighted that he came, and it was noticeable that he listened to their concerns and was able to reassure practically all of them.
The correlation between spending and academic results shows that we have made enormous progress. It is not true that one needs to spend more money to get academic results. In Japan, the average 16-year-old reaches a standard in maths that is reached by only 2 per cent. of the equivalent pupils in this country, but the Japanese spend less per head on education than we do. Therefore, the problem is not necessarily one of money. Some of the highest-spending LEAs produce the worst results.
I welcome the Bill. It is an excellent step forward, although I have one or two reservations that we can discuss in Committee. I trust that it will rapidly reach the statute book.

Mr. Eddie O'Hara: The hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Evennett) spoke scathingly of experts, and I accept that it is as well to be sceptical in the face of experts. However, I remind Conservative Members of the saying of Werner Heisenberg: an expert is someone who knows what are the greatest mistakes that can be made in his specialism and, even more, knows how to avoid making them.
I have risen to speak against the Bill because I feel that it is pregnant with error. The most marked feature of the Government's management of the state education system


is the ever-whirling wheel of changes that are so frequent and frenetic that one could be forgiven for not being able to judge whether the result is change or progress. Perhaps the eye is meant to be deceived.
I shall deal with the proposed change in the inspection of schools through the reduction in numbers, and change in the role, of HMI. I regard this as a whimsical, wanton, rushed and misbegotten change. Her Majesty's inspectorate has a distinguished history in the service of state education. Its aim was set out when the first two inspectors were appointed in 1839. They were
to carry on the inspection of schools and to convey to … teachers a knowledge of all improvements in the art of teaching.
They had also to convey to the Privy Council progress in education.
HMI has performed this dual role with distinction for more than one and a half centuries. It produced the classic handbook for teachers in 1905. It was involved in the great advances in pedagogy between the wars. It had an input into the policy for reconstruction of the education service after the second world war. In the 1970s, a Labour Prime Minister, now Lord Callaghan, in his Ruskin speech, initiated the great debate in education and recognised the important role of HMI.
Her Majesty's inspectorate undertook a major report on primary and secondary schools in the 1970s and produced great pamphlets on the curriculum, such as the red book published on 16 November 1977. It carefully prepared the ground for more uniformity of provision. It prepared the way for the national curriculum with its notion of a common core of entitlement. It did all this alongside its inspection role, and it also protected standards.
I refer here not only to the role that HMI played in the payment-by-results system in the latter part of the 19th century—a system so detested by that great inspector, Matthew Arnold—but to the courageous stand taken by Senior Chief Inspector Sheila Brown in the early 1980s, when she insisted on reporting to the House the damaging effect on schools of cuts in funding. I am surprised that it has taken the Government, in this case, so long to shoot the messenger—a talent that they have.
It appears that HMI is to be reduced to a rump of 175, if I understand the Secretary of State correctly. I leave aside his coyness about the numbers recommended in the review which he apparently dare not lay before the House. It also appears that half that number will have the impossible task of monitoring the 6,000 inspections per annum which are to be carried out by the new breed of licensed inspectors. HMI's other task is to issue the licences and to produce national reports—so much for its great achievement and traditional role in the past 150 years. Why cannot the House be enlightened by the evidence and arguments of the review document to the effect that it is not a stultification of HMI's role? We have been told only that 175 is the best possible estimate of the acting senior chief of HMI, an internal temporary appointment of the Secretary of State.
The role of HMI as envisaged in the Bill is Mission Impossible. It would be ameliorated if the job of inspection were assigned to local education authority inspectors, as appears to have been envisaged in the late 1980s following the recommendations of, for example, the Taylor report and as chronicled in the important study by the Foundation for Education and Research in 1989 entitled,

"The LEA Adviser—A Changing Role", which showed that more than three quarters of local authority advisers were already involved in inspection. There were reorganisations and reappointments all over the country and it seemed that the Government were prepared, through the local education authority training grants scheme, to put money into the training of local authority advisers to enable them to become more inspectoral in their role.
The Opposition could have lived with the trinity of a strong initiating HMI—as it has traditionally been—an education standards council and a strong local inspectorate. The Secretary of State referred to the LEA's system of inspecting schools for which it is responsible as a system designed to guarantee a failure to insist on adequate standards in schools. I leave aside the disgraceful insult to the integrity of local government inspectors and the fact that they are responsible to local government representatives, Conservative as well as Labour, but what evidence has the Secretary of State that the proposed system of licensed inspectors—a privatised system of inspection—offers a better guarantee?
It has been said that to ask for advice is nine times out of 10 to tout for flattery. The proposed system is an invitation to schools to buy flattery. Given that we presume the lowest common denominator of integrity, which is what the Secretary of State suggested with reference to local authority inspectors, what reliability can we expect in reports purchased in a competitive market? What guarantee can the Secretary of State offer that the relationship developed between schools and their hired inspectors will be any less cosy than that which he suggested would exist between schools and their parent LEAs?
Will the spirit of Miss Jean Brodie stalk the land? What assurance can be given that all pupils in the 6,000 schools will not be described as la creme de la creme? Reductio ad absurdum perhaps, but there is no more hyperbole in my criticism of the basis of a privatised system of inspection than in the Secretary of State's flippant dismissal of the LEA inspectorate.
I prefer to address my remarks not to the likely integrity of private inspectors or, indeed, of head teachers and governors, but to their ability to do the job. I leave aside the amazing criterion that each team must contain someone who knows nothing about education. There is no requirement that the teams should have any local knowledge. Is not that important to inform their judgment of the schools that they inspect? If a different team is parachuted in every four years, what guarantee is there that it will have any effect on the needs and development of the school?
The carousel of change does not represent progress; it is a change too far. In the words of Sean O'Casey, the Government are reducing education to a "state of chassis".

Mr. Bob Dunn: I give total and unqualified support to the Bill. The hon. Member for Knowsley, South (Mr. O'Hara) gave an account of the speech by Lord Callaghan, who was then Prime Minister, on 18 October 1976 at Ruskin college. It is true that his speech started the education debate, which was the good side of it. The bad side was that nothing was done by the Labour party between 1976 and the election of this Government in 1979.


Lord Callaghan made three points. The first concerned teaching methods, the second concerned standards and monitoring, and the third concerned education and industry. Under the second point, he raised the related issue of the proper role of the inspectorate and emphasised the need to find the best means of monitoring the use of resources to maintain a proper national standard of performance. The unease that Conservatives—and, I suspect, some Opposition Members—have today about the role of Her Majesty's inspectorate was shared by Lord Callaghan when he was Prime Minister. All of us, whichever party we represent in the House—

Mr. Merlyn Rees: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Dunn: No, I will not give way, although I usually give way to the right hon. Gentleman because I have waited to speak and I have only four minutes. The right hon. Gentleman will understand that I must finish speaking at 9.20 pm.
Before I was so politely interrupted, I was about to say that Lord Callaghan made the point about the need for a refocusing of the inspectorate. We believe that the Bill will achieve that, although not in the way that the Labour party's proposals would do. The Labour party seems to imply that there was a golden age for the inspectorate. I suspect that, in 1966 and again in 1976, when circulars 10/66 and 10/76 were introduced by Labour, the inspectors were leaned on by Labour Education Ministers so that they would support the Government policies of the day.
During my time at the Department of Education and Science, I saw no record of protest by Her Majesty's inspectorate of schools about the loss of the grammar schools to the British people. There was no golden age and no independence. The hon. Member for Knowsley, South referred to the time when Sheila Brown was senior chief inspector. The end of her time in the post overlapped with my first two years at the Department of Education and Science. I can remember no occasion on which a Conservative Secretary of State doctored, altered or refused to publish the report of the senior chief inspector. It has always been a matter of principle and of honour that the reports have gone forward.
What comes out of the debate tonight is that the Labour party's policies are the same as those in 1976. The Labour party still believes that the education service should be used as a means of social engineering. The Labour party still states that its fundamental objective is to establish a comprehensive system of education from nursery schools up to and beyond school leaving age.

Mr. Morley: indicated assent.

Mr. Dunn: Labour Members nod. The Labour party criticises the publication of examination results because it believes that that will reinforce social division. In the future, it is likely to restate its long-term aim to eliminate all forms of variety and all forms of education apart from that provided by the state.
I note that the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion), who chastised hon. Members for not being here, is now no longer here himself. He referred to the Conservative party's shortage of representation in Scotland. I would point out to the hon. Gentleman, and to

Labour Members generally, that, in England, the Conservative party's majority over all the other parties combined is 200. That was true at the time of the 1987 election, and it will continue to be true. It is plain that, if the Conservative party's writ does not run in Scotland, the writ of the Labour party does not run in England.
I commend the Bill to the House, and I assume that it will attract the majority that it deserves.

Mr. Derek Fatchett: The hon. Member for Dartford (Mr. Dunn) finished his speech with an uncharacteristically churlish comment. My hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion) had been here throughout our proceedings. He had spoken and had listened to the subsequent speech before nipping out of the Chamber for a few moments. My hon. Friend followed the normal conventions and was absolutely right to say that at no stage has a Scottish Conservative Member been willing to participate in the debate. We have seen today the sort of opposition that we can expect from Scottish Conservatives after the next election—non-existent.
The Bill supposedly enacts the parents charter, but there is one substantial omission from the parents charter: it makes no reference to the adequacy of resources for our education system. Not one Conservative Member has had the courage to argue about the adequacy of resources. No Opposition Member would say for one moment that the management of public resources is not important, but what we should like to hear from Conservative Members is a defence of the current inadequate level of resources allocated to our state education sytem.
Last week, we had four pieces of evidence—

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: What does this have to do with the Bill?

Mr. Fatchett: The right hon. and learned Gentleman spoke for 61 minutes almost without referring to the Bill introduced by his own Government, so he can hardly criticise me in the first two minutes of my speech. If he would listen for a few minutes, he would realise that resources go to the heart of the quality of our education system. That is probably why the right hon. and learned Gentleman bought private education for his children while allowing the rest of us to have our children educated in a system that lacks resources.
In the past few days, four pieces of evidence have appeared. The first was a survey produced by the National Confederation of Parent-Teacher Associations telling us that parents are donating £75 million from their own pockets to provide schools with basics. We are not talking about luxury items; we are talking about basics such as the maintenance of schools buildings, decorating and the provision of an adequate supply of books. My hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg) told us that a textbook that was used in his school is still there, a generation later. That is how up-to-date we are in our commitment to resources. My hon. Friend said that the book was still in good condition, and I suspect that that is because it was largely unused.
The second piece of evidence was a report about music from the National Foundation for Educational Research in England and Wales—an organisation with an impeccable, objective record—saying:


Children in deprived inner city areas are likely to find it particularly difficult to learn musical instruments as schools divert funds to what they see as more important needs".
The quality of our children's education is being undermined.
No wonder HMI is under attack. We were told by the inspectorate last week that schools had had difficulty in introducing the national curriculum. Some 85 per cent. of secondary schools reported difficulties because of the shortage of staff in specialist subjects, and the whole of the primary sector reported difficulties with primary technology and primary science. [HON. MEMBERS: "The Bill?"] All this relates to the parents charter.
On Monday, a survey by the National Union of Teachers referred to class size. We all heard the Secretary of State say on the "Today" programme that large classes do not matter and that they are not important to the quality of education. That is absolute rubbish. Why do Cabinet Ministers buy private education for their children? They do not want large classes; they want small classes and preferential treatment for their children. The parents charter does not refer to the adequacy of resources for our education system.
The Secretary of State said that this is the flagship Bill this Parliament for his education policies. I understand that it is the first flagship Bill where the captain will not serve on the Standing Committee. The captain has left the bridge before the Bill leaves the dockyard. That is typical of the Secretary of State.
The Secretary of State said that he did not want to be confused by the data published about school performance. He said that many of the electorate do not understand such complicated issues. He went so far as to say that the issues that we are discussing today may be beyond the reach of the electorate.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: indicated dissent.

Mr. Fatchett: The Secretary of State's argument was patronising.
The Secretary of State may be interested in the figures. When questioned, 10 per cent. of the electorate recognised the term "HMI". When asked to identify a photograph of the man trying to run the education system—in other words, the Secretary of State—7 per cent. of the electorate recognised him. Perhaps that 7 per cent. should have been asked whether they understood what HMI stood for.
Opposition Members have presented a sensible and sound argument today. We have begun to persuade all Conservative Members, with the exception of the Secretary of State, that the so-called raw data is misleading, confusing and potentially damaging. There are many examples of that. If we publish the results of seven-plus assessment, what will happen in inner-city schools like those in my constituency? Are we going to make judgments about those schools when some of the youngsters do not have English as their first language and will have been in this country for only a short time? How are we to judge those data?
On the Government Benches, only the Secretary of State believes that we should not present more than the raw data. Several of my colleagues referred to special needs. If only crude raw data are published, schools will be reluctant to take on youngsters with special needs.

Mr. John Greenway: Rubbish.

Mr. Fatchett: The hon. Gentleman may say, "Rubbish," but what I have described is a fact of life, which is already happening under local management of schools because budgets make it difficult for head teachers to take on special needs youngsters. That is what will happen with the publication of league tables.

Mr. Rees: My hon. Friend is aware that I have a personal interest in the problems of dyslexia. The Dyslexia Educational Trust has stated that, if we proceed with raw data,
Such a measure would be to make head teachers and governing bodies unwilling to accept any child with a learning difficulty
because of the effect on the local community and the judgments they would have to make because they would not appreciate problems like dyslexia. I am greatly concerned about that, but nothing seems to have been done about that problem.

Mr. Fatchett: My right hon. Friend's point has also been made by Deaf Accord and Mencap and a range of organisations representing youngsters with special needs of all kinds. If we adopt crude league tables, the needs of those youngsters will not be taken full account of.
Several of my colleagues reinforced the point that it is always possible to produce good league tables if a head teacher in a particular school limits entry to examinations. That is clear from the league tables published in the national press. We should be trying to persuade more youngsters, not fewer, to enter examinations, and more youngsters, not fewer, to push up standards instead of simply maintaining league tables.
I realise that the Minister of State has problems with his Secretary of State, but we must make sure that we invest in the notion of added value that the Audit Commission was talking about. We need that added value to judge the performance of a school. We need information that tells us about the quality of school life, and the availability of music, art, drama and sport in schools. All that is relevant to parents, but none of it has been discussed by any Conservative Member. All that is crucial in providing us with the necessary information.
The crucial aspect of the notion of league tables is that the Government are abdicating management of the education system and leaving its standards to the market. The Government's position assumes that each parent has equal and absolute freedom to move his or her child from one school to another. That is the thesis behind the publication of league tables—one moves one's child from the school with a poor record to another school, and then levers up standards by that process.
That might happen in the private sector, and it might happen for the children of Ministers, but for the vast majority of parents, that is not a proposition. As the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor) said, that is not a proposition for parents in Cornwall, because they relate to the neighbourhood school. They want the standards of the neighbourhood school to be improved.
Also, it is not a proposition for many inner-city schools. Many parents do not have the personal and financial resources to shop around and move from one school to another. That is why the proposal to privatise the inspectorate means that the Government have abdicated their responsibility for the general improvement of standards. It means that the Government have decided that they are concerned not with opportunity but with the


education of a few. That outdated philosophy will leave Britain unable to compete economically and educationally in the 21st century.
The proposal to privatise will lower standards and will be expensive, but the real reason for the proposal to privatise the inspectorate comes from the Government's vendetta against the inspectorate. My hon. Friends the Members for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg) and for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery) said that, time after time, the Government have been embarrassed by the reports of Her Majesty's inspectorate. It is typical of the Conservative party that, faced with criticism and embarrassment, it does not take up the arguments: it simply wipes out the source of the embarrassment. That is the reason for privatisation.
That applies to what the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Fallon), said in criticism of the educational establishment. I fear that he will regret the phrase if he is looking for promotion, but he referred to the educational establishment as "men in suede shoes". The only difference is that we have replaced one pair of suede shoes with another, and the latter pair carries a series of prejudices with it.
There is concern about standards, because this is the first time that we have a system embedded in law which states that the people who are to carry out a particular task will be best qualified for it if they have no skill whatsoever. That job advertisement states, "Apply if you have no ability in this matter." It is like advertising a job for a long-distance lorry driver and saying that the best qualification is not to be able to drive a car or lorry of any description.
It is a peculiar notion of the Government that people who are to make professional judgments of others are to be without expertise. The point is even deeper than that, because the choice will be made by governors and by head teachers. The system will be incestuous, because it will enable reports to be produced which are satisfactory and which reflect well on schools. That is not to question the integrity of those who become inspectors.
But what will happen? Let us say that, after the next election, the hon. Member for Dartford has some spare time on his hands and chairs a school governing body. He has various views about the education system.

Mr. Straw: He might be an inspector.

Mr. Fatchett: As my hon. Friend says, the hon. Gentleman could offer his views as an inspector. He would certainly qualify as someone with little or no expertise—that is clear from his record as a Minister. He may go to a school and say that he had a particular view of the education system. Will not school governing bodies and head teachers ask for a report from that inspection team to ensure that their work is reinforced?
For the sake of an ideological belief in the market and privatisation, the Government are getting rid of a system that has maintained standards. They are getting rid of a system that has worked and are replacing it with one that will be confusing, chaotic and expensive. It will be expensive, because the economies of scale that is currently possible with local inspectors and in Her Majesty's inspectorate will disappear under the new contractual system.
But we will lose more. We will lose the ability of HMI to produce reports on sectors of education such as special needs, primary education and the delivery of certain subjects. For simple ideological reasons, the Government are throwing away what has been good in our education system, yet again because they want change for change's sake. They have given away the opportunity to lever up standards. They care only about a certain belief and a certain dogma.
During the debate, Opposition Members have suggested a set of proposals based around Labour's education standards commission which are designed to lever an improvement in general education standards. They are designed to enhance opportunities and not only to work but to ensure that opportunity exists across the whole of our education system.
The proposals in the Bill have gained no widespread support. There has been no process of consultation. But the Secretary of State held himself forward as the champion of free speech and information.

Mr. Dunn: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Fatchett: I will not give way at this stage.

Mr. Dunn: rose—

Mr. Fatchett: No. I have only three minutes left.
The Secretary of State keeps referring to the report which reviewed the functions of the inspectorate. Yet the same Secretary of State has denied that information to the House, parents and the country. The Secretary of State uses that report as an objective, impartial report. If he wants to use it in evidence, every other Member of Parliament should have the right to see it.
That is why we argue that the Bill should be referred to a Special Standing Committee. We want to have the right to weigh up the evidence and the arguments and find out what support there is in the country for the proposal to privatise HMI.
It was R. H. Tawney who said:
What good parents would want for their own children, so the state should wish for all its children.
Ministers decide what they want for their own children. They opt out of the state system. They go to the private sector. They want to use the rest of our children, the 94 per cent. of children who use the state sector, for one ideological experiment after another.
Change for change's sake: that is the point about the Bill. It is further change for change's sake and further experimentation. It is for that reason, and because the Bill throws away good standards and does not give us the ability to improve standards, that we shall reject it. We shall vote against it this evening. We shall campaign against it and ensure that parents throughout Britain see the Bill as deeply damaging, because it is an ideologically driven privatising measure. We will vote against the Bill and we will win the argument, because parents want better. They want a change of Government—they want a Labour Government.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. Tim Eggar): Normally we expect better and get better from the hon. Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett). Was it not interesting that not one Labour Member paid tribute to the excellent results being achieved by so many of our schools? My hon. Friends the Members


for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) and for Wyre Forest (Mr. Coombs) did, as did the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor). But Labour Members are interested in only one thing—

Mr. Steinberg: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Eggar: Labour Members are interested only in—

Mr. Speaker: Order. There is a point of order. What is it?

Mr. Steinberg: rose—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. I cannot hear.

Mr. Steinberg: The Minister deliberately misled the House. He said that not one Labour Member paid tribute—[Interruption.]

Several Hon. Members: Withdraw!

Mr. Speaker: Order. I ask the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg) to withdraw the phrase "deliberately misled the House".

Mr. Steinberg: I withdraw the word "deliberately". The Minister misled the House.

Mr. Eggar: Of course, if the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg) claims that he made such tributes in his speech, I am happy to accept it. The trouble is that the hon. Member for City of Durham made exactly the same speech as he usually makes. As usual, it was incomprehensible and perhaps I could be forgiven for failing to pick up his argument.

Mr. Frank Haynes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. What is it? [Interruption.] I must hear the point of order.

Mr. Haynes: You must understand, Mr. Speaker, that the Minister made a mistake with my hon. Friend, and he made a mistake with the National Union of Teachers. It goes on and on with this Minister and it is time you did something about it.

Mr. Speaker: I often hear that hon. Members make mistakes in this place, but I am not responsible for what they say, provided that it is in order.

Mr. Eggar: The greatest mistake of the hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) is his retirement from the House at the next election. We really shall miss the court jester of the House, who has contributed a great deal to our debates.

Mr. Dunn: I think that my hon. Friend the Minister will find my remarks helpful. The hon. Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett), who is an apprentice chair of the worst order, said that the Government had not consulted on this legislation. With his infinite knowledge of education, will the Minister of State remind us that, when the Labour party introduced the Education Act 1976, which led to the abolition of grammar schools—

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Not all of them.

Mr. Dunn: It led to the abolition of almost all the grammar schools. Is there a commitment from the Labour

party that it would consult if it came to power and introduced legislation to abolish grammar schools? The answer is no, not then and not for the future.

Mr. Eggar: As usual my hon. Friend is right. It is extraordinary that the Opposition appear to be worried about standards and have been talking about them at some length, but they are committed to destroying grammar schools, to withdrawing the assisted places scheme and to scrapping grant-maintained schools, city technology colleges and much of what is excellent in our existing system.
What is more, despite all this business about consultation, in which the Opposition claim to be interested, they have told us that they will introduce a public inquiry system on school closures. Are the Opposition committed to a public inquiry on CTCs, grant-maintained schools and grammar schools?
It is appropriate now to turn to the particular crusade of my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Mitchell), who has played such an important part in bringing to the attention of the House the vital need to publish exam results in a readily understandable way. He is clear, but the Labour party is far from clear. Indeed, at one stage during the speech of the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) I thought that he was getting near to saying that the Labour party was committed to publishing examination results; but no, he did not quite come out with that. I noticed that for at least 10 minutes of his speech the hon. Member for Leeds, Central was desperately trying to haul back the various commitments that the hon. Member for Blackburn may or may not have given. As usual, the Labour party is trying to have it both ways.
The Labour party has come to admit that testing pupils is an essential aid to learning—not something that it admitted as recently as a couple of years ago. Although testing may now be accepted within a socialist state—

The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Mr. Michael Forsyth): Not in Scotland.

Mr. Eggar: Not in Scotland, as my hon. Friend admits, but at least south of the border, the Labour party has not gone on to accept that the results of those tests should be made available to the public.
Apparently the only sort of publication that Labour Members will allow is one that is so hedged around with correction factors, socio-economic variables and explanatory footnotes that only a parent with a PhD in statistics and a specialisation in sociology could understand it. Under that system parents would be seen but not heard.
What sort of corrections are to be made to the basic examination data? We can take our pick. There are as many views as experts in the field. Should we expect less of a pupil because she or he has only one parent—however supportive? Should we assign a pupil a negative correction factor just because, for whatever reason, he qualifies for free meals? Conservative Members do not think so.
Perhaps we should look beyond pupils to the characteristics of their schools. Perhaps we should not expect too much of pupils who are educated in older buildings. Perhaps we should have a factor that takes account of the old Victorian high ceilings. Another factor that we could introduce might take account of buildings with 1960s flat roofs. Or we could introduce a factor relating to the quality of the environment. We could knock


off a few points for trees, grass verges and clean pavements and top up the scores of those whose schools are in grimy streets—mainly, I might add, in socialist boroughs.
An adjustment which, I am sure, would commend itself to Labour Members is one that would take account of poor local education authority practice. The hon. Member for Leeds, Central will recognise the need to do that. After all, he represents a seat where primary pupils have been illserved by their LEA's imposition of a particular primary practice. Perhaps he could devise for us a correction factor—

Mr. Fatchett: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. One at a time, please.

Mr. Eggar: —for not being educated at Leeds. That is the sort of issue that the hon. Gentleman should address—

Mr. Fatchett: rose—

Mr. Eggar: But in his own time.

Mr. Fatchett: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Get him to sit down, please. One at a time, please.

Mr. Eggar: The hon. Gentleman would not give way, so I see no reason why he should make inroads to the limited time available to me. The basic fact is that a youngster will not get a job armed with a socio-economic factor or a correction factor. A youngster will not move on to further or higher education with a correction factor. What counts in the outside world is real achievement. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] We must ensure that every child, from every background and in every school, does as well as he or she is capable. We must not cover up under-achievement with fiddled figures, whatever the various arguments from the Opposition.
The Opposition have not sought to deal with one question: what is the reason for depriving parents of information about examination results? Why should parents be kept in the dark? Why should they not be able to make their choice of schools with the full benefit of the relevant information?
The hon. Member for Blackburn made quite a lot of the document, "Raising the Standard", Labour's plan for an education standards commission. The Opposition told us that parents would be misled by simple examination result information. In the document of which the hon. Member for Blackburn is so proud, we are promised that the standards commission would
publish detailed information on how to judge a school's performance.
In other words, the standards commission would be telling parents how they should interpret information. Doubtless it would doctor that information in one way or another according to the diktats of the Labour party.
Parents already know how to judge schools. What they want is the one thing that the Labour party would keep from them—the information on which to base their judgment.

Mr. John McFall: rose—

Mr. Eggar: I will not give way.
The hon. Member for Blackburn tried to claim that his document on inspection offered clarity and a way forward to real quality control. I have had a careful look at that document and some things are clear. First, the Labour proposals destroy the independence of Her Majesty's inspectorate. It is placed under the overall control of an appointed quango and that quango will control Her Majesty's inspectorate's priorities, its inspection programmes and its reports. Her Majesty's inspectorate has a great deal more independence now than Labour would offer, and it will have even more when the Bill is passed.

Mr. Straw: rose—

Mr. Eggar: No, no.

Mr. Straw: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Eggar: HMI would be gratuitously split under Labour's proposals, with the larger part of it under the control of the quango and the lesser part reporting to the Secretary of State. In other words, those in HMI who inspect would not advice and those in HMI who advise would not inspect. As the former senior chief inspector, Eric Bolton, said:
This would ensure that HMI would cease to exist.
It would cease to exist as a powerful force offering advice based on observation and inspection. In contradistinction to that, the Bill retains the integrity of HMI and strengthens its constitutional position.

Mr. Straw: rose—

Mr. Eggar: No, I have not finished with the—

Mr. Straw: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I ask both hon. Gentlemen to sit down. If the Minister does not give way, the hon. Gentleman must resume his seat.

Mr. Eggar: I have not finished with the hon. Gentleman yet. I have done him the courtesy of reading his document. The fact that he does not appear to have done so recently and that he was giving a very fanciful interpretation of the document does not deter me from going on to make my point. It is clear that the hon. Gentleman has not read his own policy document.
Contrary to what the hon. Gentleman says, that document simply offers validation by the new standards quango of LEAs'—not inspectors'—policies and guidance and "close informal links", to quote from the document. It does not offer what the hon. Gentleman claims it offers, which is direct control by the quango of the local inspectors.
The Labour party does not propose a model for external quality control. Under the hon. Gentleman's system, the true controller of quality remains the LEA, and the LEA decides who may or may not be an inspector. Under the Bill, that crucial decision—and it is crucial—remains with HMI. In the Labour party document the decision rests with LEAs. But there is another point—

Mr. McFall: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Clause 17 refers directly to Scotland. No mention has been made of Scotland. In view of the debilitating—[Interruption.]—political situation facing Conservatives there, that is a further slight on the people of Scotland.

Mr. Speaker: Order. We have five minutes to go. Perhaps some comment will be made about that.

Mr. Eggar: Absolutely nowhere in the Labour party policy document is there anything about the publication of inspection reports. Labour Members appear to be converts to regular inspection, but only if it is secret and not available to parents.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey) made clear, much of the Bill is about strengthening Her Majesty's inspectorate's position. Her Majesty's inspectorate will have a clear duty to advise the Secretary of State and the ability to publish whatever, whenever and however it wishes. It will be in charge of the new system of inspections. It will decide who may and who may not inspect.

Mr. Straw: rose—

Mr. Eggar: No, I will not give way.

Hon. Members: Chicken.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Eggar: Her Majesty's inspectorate will be making a direct impact on over 6,000 inspections each year, far more than at present. The numbers of Her Majesty's inspectors will be reduced, it is clear, but their influence and effect will be much greater.
Labour Members have only recently been converted to the case for school inspections. That interest was not manifest between the publication of the Audit Commission report and June this year. Indeed, between December 1989 and May 1991, the occupants of the Labour Front Bench did not ask one parliamentary question relating to inspection. That is how much they were concerned with inspection.
But it is far worse than that. Let us examine the practice and experience of LEAs on inspection and consider some of the authorities that Labour Members know. In Lancashire, for example, the hon. Member for Blackburn will know that the authority does not believe in inspection. It employs only advisers, not inspectors. The advisers' role in Lancashire is to "validate schools' self-evaluation"—not to go into the classroom to see what is going on, but to hear from staff how they would like things to be—[Interruption.] That is a Blackburn model of inspection. That is the Labour party really in action.
The vociferous hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery) had much to say about inspection, but he did not refer to the lack of inspection in Sheffield, where only an advisory service is on offer, the policy guidance of which is unclear and where written reports are not produced.
I could go on at some length, but the examples that I have given are typical of Labour local education authorities. The Bill is good for parents and standards. I urge the House to vote for it.

Question put:—

The House divided: Ayes 264, Noes 219.

Division No. 12]
[10.00 pm


AYES


Adley, Robert
Amos, Alan


Aitken, Jonathan
Arbuthnot, James


Alexander, Richard
Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)


Alison, Rt Hon Michael
Ashby, David


Allason, Rupert
Aspinwall, Jack


Amess, David
Atkinson, David





Banks, Robert (Harrogate)
Fox, Sir Marcus


Batiste, Spencer
Franks, Cecil


Beaumont-Dark, Anthony
Freeman, Roger


Bellingham, Henry
French, Douglas


Bendall, Vivian
Fry, Peter


Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Gale, Roger


Benyon, W.
Garel-Jones, Tristan


Bevan, David Gilroy
Gill, Christopher


Biffen, Rt Hon John
Glyn, Dr Sir Alan


Blackburn, Dr John G.
Goodhart, Sir Philip


Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter
Goodlad, Alastair


Bonsor, Sir Nicholas
Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Gorman, Mrs Teresa


Boswell. Tim
Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)


Bottomley, Peter
Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)


Bottomley, Mrs Virginia
Greenway, John (Ryedale)


Bowden, A. (Brighton K'pto'n)
Gregory, Conal


Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)
Griffiths, Sir Eldon (Bury St E')


Bowis, John
Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)


Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes
Grist, Ian


Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard
Ground, Patrick


Brandon-Bravo, Martin
Grylls, Michael


Brazier, Julian
Hague, William


Bright, Graham
Hamilton, Rt Hon Archie


Brown, Michael (Brigg &amp; Cl't's)
Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)


Browne, John (Winchester)
Hampson, Dr Keith


Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)
Hannam, John


Buck, Sir Antony
Hargreaves, A. (B'ham H'll Gr')


Budgen, Nicholas
Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)


Burns, Simon
Harris, David


Butcher, John
Hawkins, Christopher


Butler, Chris
Hayes, Jerry


Butterfill, John
Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney


Carlisle, John, (Luton N)
Hill, James


Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Hind, Kenneth


Carrington, Matthew
Hordern, Sir Peter


Cash, William
Howard, Rt Hon Michael


Channon, Rt Hon Paul
Howarth, Alan (Strat'd-on-A)


Chapman, Sydney
Howarth, G. (Cannock &amp; B'wd)


Chope, Christopher
Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)


Clark, Rt Hon Alan (Plymouth)
Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)


Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)
Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)


Clark, Rt Hon Sir William
Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)


Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)
Hunter, Andrew


Colvin, Michael
Irvine, Michael


Conway, Derek
Jack, Michael


Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)
Janman, Tim


Coombs, Simon (Swindon)
Jessel, Toby


Cope, Rt Hon Sir John
Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey


Cormack, Patrick
Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)


Couchman, James
Jones, Robert B (Herts W)


Cran, James
Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine


Currie, Mrs Edwina
Key, Robert


Davies, Q. (Stamf'd &amp; Spald'g)
Kilfedder, James


Davis, David (Boothferry)
King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)


Day, Stephen
Kirkhope, Timothy


Devlin, Tim
Knapman, Roger


Dickens, Geoffrey
Knight, Greg (Derby North)


Dicks, Terry
Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)


Dorrell, Stephen
Knox, David


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Latham, Michael


Dover, Den
Lawrence, Ivan


Dunn, Bob
Lee, John (Pendle)


Durant, Sir Anthony
Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)


Eggar, Tim
Lightbown, David


Emery, Sir Peter
Lilley, Rt Hon Peter


Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)
Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)


Evennett, David
Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)


Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas
Lord, Michael


Fallon, Michael
Luce, Rt Hon Sir Richard


Favell, Tony
Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas


Fenner, Dame Peggy
MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)


Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)
Maclean, David


Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey
McLoughlin, Patrick


Fishburn, John Dudley
McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick


Fookes, Dame Janet
Major, Rt Hon John


Forman, Nigel
Malins, Humfrey


Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)
Mans, Keith


Forsythe, Clifford (Antrim S)
Maples, John


Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman
Marland, Paul






Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)
Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)


Martin, David (Portsmouth S)
Shersby, Michael


Maude, Hon Francis
Skeet, Sir Trevor


Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin
Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)


Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick
Speller, Tony


Mellor, Rt Hon David
Squire, Robin


Meyer, Sir Anthony
Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John


Miller, Sir Hal
Stevens, Lewis


Mills, Iain
Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)


Miscampbell, Norman
Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)


Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)
Sumberg, David


Mitchell, Sir David
Taylor, Ian (Esher)


Moate, Roger
Taylor, John M (Solihull)


Monro, Sir Hector
Taylor, Sir Teddy


Montgomery, Sir Fergus
Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman


Morris, M (N'hampton S)
Temple-Morris, Peter


Morrison, Rt Hon Sir Peter
Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)


Moss, Malcolm
Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)


Moynihan, Hon Colin
Thorne, Neil


Neale, Sir Gerrard
Thornton, Malcolm


Nelson, Anthony
Tracey, Richard


Neubert, Sir Michael
Tredinnick, David


Nicholls, Patrick
Trippier, David


Nicholson, David (Taunton)
Trotter, Neville


Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)
Twinn, Dr Ian


Norris, Steve
Vaughan, Sir Gerard


Oppenheim, Phillip
Waldegrave, Rt Hon William


Page, Richard
Walden, George


Paice, James
Waller, Gary


Patnick, Irvine
Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)


Patten, Rt Hon Chris (Bath)
Warren, Kenneth


Patten, Rt Hon John
Watts, John


Pawsey, James
Wheeler, Sir John


Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth
Whitney, Ray


Porter, Barry (Wirral S)
Widdecombe, Ann


Porter, David (Waveney)
Wiggin, Jerry


Portillo, Michael
Wilkinson, John


Powell, William (Corby)
Wilshire, David


Price, Sir David
Winterton, Mrs Ann


Raffan, Keith
Winterton, Nicholas


Raison, Rt Hon Sir Timothy
Wolfson, Mark


Redwood, John
Wood, Timothy


Rhodes James, Sir Robert
Yeo, Tim


Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas
Young, Sir George (Acton)


Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn



Ryder, Rt Hon Richard
Tellers for the Ayes:


Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas
Mr. Tom Sackville and Mr. Nicholas Baker.


Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')





NOES


Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley, N.)
Callaghan, Jim


Allen, Graham
Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)


Alton, David
Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)


Anderson, Donald
Campbell-Savours, D. N.


Archer, Rt Hon Peter
Canavan, Dennis


Armstrong, Hilary
Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)


Ashley, Rt Hon Jack
Carr, Michael


Ashton, Joe
Clark, Dr David (S Shields)


Banks, Tony (Newham NW)
Clelland, David


Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)
Clwyd, Mrs Ann


Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)
Cohen, Harry


Barron, Kevin
Cook, Frank (Stockton N)


Battle, John
Cook, Robin (Livingston)


Beckett, Margaret
Corbett, Robin


Beith, A. J.
Corbyn, Jeremy


Bell, Stuart
Cousins, Jim


Bellotti, David
Cox, Tom


Benn, Rt Hon Tony
Crowther, Stan


Bennett, A. F. (D'nt'n &amp; R'dish)
Cryer, Bob


Benton, Joseph
Cummings, John


Bermingham, Gerald
Cunliffe, Lawrence


Bidwell, Sydney
Cunningham, Dr John


Blunkett, David
Dalyell, Tam


Boateng, Paul
Darling, Alistair


Boyes, Roland
Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)


Bradley, Keith
Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)


Bray, Dr Jeremy
Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H'l)


Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)
Dewar, Donald


Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)
Dixon, Don


Caborn, Richard
Dobson, Frank





Doran, Frank
McLeish, Henry


Duffy, Sir A. E. P.
McMaster, Gordon


Dunnachie, Jimmy
McNamara, Kevin


Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth
Madden, Max


Eadie, Alexander
Mahon, Mrs Alice


Eastham, Ken
Marek, Dr John


Edwards, Huw
Marshall, David (Shettleston)


Enright, Derek
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)


Evans, John (St Helens N)
Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)


Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)
Martlew, Eric


Fatchett, Derek
Maxton, John


Fearn, Ronald
Meacher, Michael


Field, Frank (Birkenhead)
Meale, Alan


Fields, Terry (L'pool B G'n)
Michael, Alun


Fisher, Mark
Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)


Flannery, Martin
Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l &amp; Bute)


Flynn, Paul
Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)


Foster, Derek
Moonie, Dr Lewis


Fraser, John
Morgan, Rhodri


Fyfe, Maria
Morley, Elliot


Galloway, George
Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)


Garrett, John (Norwich South)
Mowlam, Marjorie


Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)
Murphy, Paul


Godman, Dr Norman A.
Nellist, Dave


Golding, Mrs Llin
O'Brien, William


Gordon, Mildred
O'Hara, Edward


Gould, Bryan
O'Neill, Martin


Graham, Thomas
Orme, Rt Hon Stanley


Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)
Parry, Robert


Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)
Patchett, Terry


Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)
Pike, Peter L.


Grocott, Bruce
Prescott, John


Hain, Peter
Primarolo, Dawn


Hardy, Peter
Quin, Ms Joyce


Harman, Ms Harriet
Radice, Giles


Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy
Randall, Stuart


Haynes, Frank
Redmond, Martin


Heal, Mrs Sylvia
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn


Healey, Rt Hon Denis
Richardson, Jo


Henderson, Doug
Robertson, George


Hinchliffe, David
Robinson, Geoffrey


Hoey, Kate (Vauxhall)
Rogers, Allan


Hogg, N. (C'nauld &amp; Kilsyth)
Rooker, Jeff


Howarth, George (Knowsley N)
Rooney, Terence


Howell, Rt Hon D. (S'heath)
Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)


Howells, Geraint
Rowlands, Ted


Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)
Ruddock, Joan


Hoyle, Doug
Salmond, Alex


Hughes, John (Coventry NE)
Sedgemore, Brian


Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)
Sheerman, Barry


Hughes, Simon (Southwark)
Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert


Illsley, Eric
Shore, Rt Hon Peter


Ingram, Adam
Short, Clare


Janner, Greville
Skinner, Dennis


Jones, Barry (Alyn &amp; Deeside)
Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)


Kennedy, Charles
Smith, C. (Isl'ton &amp; F'bury)


Kilfoyle, Peter
Smith, Rt Hon J. (Monk'ds E)


Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil
Smith, J. P. (Vale of Glam)


Kirkwood, Archy
Snape, Peter


Kumar, Dr. Ashok
Soley, Clive


Lambie, David
Steel, Rt Hon Sir David


Leadbitter, Ted
Steinberg, Gerry


Leighton, Ron
Stephen, Nicol


Lestor, Joan (Eccles)
Straw, Jack


Lewis, Terry
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)


Litherland, Robert
Taylor, Matthew (Truro)


Livingstone, Ken
Thomas, Dr Dafydd Elis


Livsey, Richard
Turner, Dennis


Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)
Wallace, James


Lofthouse, Geoffrey
Walley, Joan


Loyden, Eddie
Wardell, Gareth (Gower)


McAllion, John
Wareing, Robert N.


McAvoy, Thomas
Watson, Mike (Glasgow, C)


McCartney, Ian
Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)


Macdonald, Calum A.
Williams, Rt Hon Alan


McFall, John
Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)


McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)
Wilson, Brian


McKelvey, William
Winnick, David






Wise, Mrs Audrey
Tellers for the Noes:


Worthington, Tony
Mr. Jack Thompson and Mr. Martyn Jones.


Young, David (Bolton SE)

Question accordingly agreed to.

Bill read a Second time.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 61 (Committal of Bills), That the Bill be committed to a Special Standing Committee. —[Mr. Straw.]

The House divided: Ayes 223, Noes 259.

Division No. 13]
[10.13 pm


AYES


Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley, N.)
Dunnachie, Jimmy


Allen, Graham
Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth


Alton, David
Eadie, Alexander


Anderson, Donald
Eastham, Ken


Archer, Rt Hon Peter
Edwards, Huw


Armstrong, Hilary
Enright, Derek


Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy
Evans, John (St Helens N)


Ashley, Rt Hon Jack
Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)


Ashton, Joe
Fatchett, Derek


Banks, Tony (Newham NW)
Faulds, Andrew


Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)
Fearn, Ronald


Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)
Field, Frank (Birkenhead)


Barron, Kevin
Fields, Terry (L'pool B G'n)


Battle, John
Fisher, Mark


Beckett, Margaret
Flannery, Martin


Beith, A. J.
Flynn, Paul


Bell, Stuart
Foster, Derek


Bellotti, David
Fraser, John


Benn, Rt Hon Tony
Fyfe, Maria


Bennett, A. F. (D'nt'n &amp; R'dish)
Galloway, George


Benton, Joseph
Garrett, John (Norwich South)


Bermingham, Gerald
Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)


Bidwell, Sydney
Godman, Dr Norman A.


Blunkett, David
Golding, Mrs Llin


Boateng, Paul
Gordon, Mildred


Boyes, Roland
Gould, Bryan


Bradley, Keith
Graham, Thomas


Bray, Dr Jeremy
Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)


Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)
Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)


Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)
Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)


Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)
Grocott, Bruce


Caborn, Richard
Hain, Peter


Callaghan, Jim
Hardy, Peter


Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)
Harman, Ms Harriet


Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)
Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy


Campbell-Savours, D. N.
Heal, Mrs Sylvia


Canavan, Dennis
Healey, Rt Hon Denis


Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)
Henderson, Doug


Carr, Michael
Hinchliffe, David


Clark, Dr David (S Shields)
Hoey, Kate (Vauxhall)


Clelland, David
Hogg, N. (C'nauld &amp; Kilsyth)


Clwyd, Mrs Ann
Howarth, George (Knowsley N)


Cohen, Harry
Howell, Rt Hon D. (S'heath)


Cook, Frank (Stockton N)
Howells, Geraint


Cook, Robin (Livingston)
Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)


Corbett, Robin
Hoyle, Doug


Corbyn, Jeremy
Hughes, John (Coventry NE)


Cousins, Jim
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)


Cox, Tom
Hughes, Simon (Southwark)


Crowther, Stan
Ingram, Adam


Cryer, Bob
Janner, Greville


Cummings, John
Jones, Barry (Alyn &amp; Deeside)


Cunliffe, Lawrence
Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)


Cunningham, Dr John
Kennedy, Charles


Dalyell, Tam
Kilfoyle, Peter


Darling, Alistair
Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil


Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)
Kirkwood, Archy


Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)
Kumar, Dr. Ashok


Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H'l)
Lambie, David


Dewar, Donald
Leadbitter, Ted


Dixon, Don
Leighton, Ron


Dobson, Frank
Lestor, Joan (Eccles)


Doran, Frank
Lewis, Terry


Duffy, Sir A. E. P.
Litherland, Robert





Livingstone, Ken
Reid, Dr John


Livsey, Richard
Richardson, Jo


Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)
Robertson, George


Lofthouse, Geoffrey
Robinson, Geoffrey


Loyden, Eddie
Rogers, Allan


McAllion, John
Rooker, Jeff


McAvoy, Thomas
Rooney, Terence


McCartney, Ian
Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)


Macdonald, Calum A.
Rowlands, Ted


McFall, John
Ruddock, Joan


McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)
Salmond, Alex


McKelvey, William
Sedgemore, Brian


McLeish, Henry
Sheerman, Barry


McMaster, Gordon
Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert


McNamara, Kevin
Shore, Rt Hon Peter


Madden, Max
Short, Clare


Mahon, Mrs Alice
Skinner, Dennis


Marek, Dr John
Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)


Marshall, David (Shettleston)
Smith, C. (Isl'ton &amp; F'bury)


Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)
Smith, Rt Hon J. (Monk'ds E)


Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)
Smith, J. P. (Vale of Glam)


Martlew, Eric
Snape, Peter


Maxton, John
Soley, Clive


Meacher, Michael
Steel, Rt Hon Sir David


Meale, Alan
Steinberg, Gerry


Michael, Alun
Stephen, Mr. Nicol


Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)
Straw, Jack


Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l &amp; Bute)
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)


Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)
Taylor, Matthew (Truro)


Moonie, Dr Lewis
Thomas, Dr Dafydd Elis


Morgan, Rhodri
Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)


Morley, Elliot
Turner, Dennis


Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)
Wallace, James


Mowlam, Marjorie
Walley, Joan


Murphy, Paul
Wardell, Gareth (Gower)


Nellist, Dave
Wareing, Robert N.


O'Brien, William
Watson, Mike (Glasgow, C)


O'Hara, Edward
Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)


O'Neill, Martin
Williams, Rt Hon Alan


Orme, Rt Hon Stanley
Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)


Parry, Robert
Wilson, Brian


Patchett, Terry
Winnick, David


Pike, Peter L.
Wise, Mrs Audrey


Prescott, John
Worthington, Tony


Primarolo, Dawn
Young, David (Bolton SE)


Quin, Ms Joyce



Radice, Giles
Tellers for the Ayes:


Randall, Stuart
Mr. Frank Haynes and Mr. Eric Illsley.


Redmond, Martin



Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn





NOES


Adley, Robert
Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)


Aitken, Jonathan
Bowis, John


Alexander, Richard
Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes


Alison, Rt Hon Michael
Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard


Allason, Rupert
Brandon-Bravo, Martin


Amess, David
Brazier, Julian


Amos, Alan
Bright, Graham


Arbuthnot, James
Brown, Michael (Brigg &amp; Cl't's)


Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)
Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)


Ashby, David
Buck, Sir Antony


Aspinwall, Jack
Budgen, Nicholas


Atkinson, David
Burns, Simon


Banks, Robert (Harrogate)
Butcher, John


Batiste, Spencer
Butler, Chris


Beaumont-Dark, Anthony
Butterfill, John


Bellingham, Henry
Carlisle, John, (Luton N)


Bendall, Vivian
Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)


Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Carrington, Matthew


Benyon, W.
Cash, William


Bevan, David Gilroy
Channon, Rt Hon Paul


Biffen, Rt Hon John
Chapman, Sydney


Blackburn, Dr John G.
Chope, Christopher


Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter
Clark, Rt Hon Alan (Plymouth)


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)


Boswell, Tim
Clark, Rt Hon Sir William


Bottomley, Peter
Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)


Bottomley, Mrs Virginia
Colvin, Michael


Bowden, A. (Brighton K'pto'n)
Conway, Derek






Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)
Hind, Kenneth


Coombs, Simon (Swindon)
Hordern, Sir Peter


Cope, Rt Hon Sir John
Howard, Rt Hon Michael


Cormack, Patrick
Howarth, Alan (Strat'd-on-A)


Couchman, James
Howarth, G. (Cannock &amp; B'wd)


Cran, James
Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)


Currie, Mrs Edwina
Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)


Davies, Q. (Stamf'd &amp; Spald'g)
Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)


Davis, David (Boothferry)
Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)


Day, Stephen
Hunter, Andrew


Devlin, Tim
Irvine, Michael


Dickens, Geoffrey
Jack, Michael


Dicks, Terry
Janman, Tim


Dorrell, Stephen
Jessel, Toby


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey


Dover, Den
Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)


Dunn, Bob
Jones, Robert B (Herts W)


Durant, Sir Anthony
Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine


Eggar, Tim
Key, Robert


Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)
Kilfedder, James


Evennett, David
King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)


Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas
Kirkhope, Timothy


Fallon, Michael
Knapman, Roger


Favell, Tony
Knight, Greg (Derby North)


Fenner, Dame Peggy
Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)


Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)
Knox, David


Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey
Lawrence, Ivan


Fishburn, John Dudley
Lee, John (Pendle)


Fookes, Dame Janet
Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)


Forman, Nigel
Lightbown, David


Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)
Lilley, Rt Hon Peter


Forsythe, Clifford (Antrim S)
Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)


Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman
Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)


Fox, Sir Marcus
Lord, Michael


Franks, Cecil
Luce, Rt Hon Sir Richard


Freeman, Roger
Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas


French, Douglas
MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)


Fry, Peter
Maclean, David


Gale, Roger
McLoughlin, Patrick


Garel-Jones, Tristan
McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick


Gill, Christopher
Major, Rt Hon John


Glyn, Dr Sir Alan
Malins, Humfrey


Goodhart, Sir Philip
Mans, Keith


Goodlad, Alastair
Maples, John


Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles
Marland, Paul


Gorman, Mrs Teresa
Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)


Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)
Martin, David (Portsmouth S)


Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)
Maude, Hon Francis


Greenway, John (Ryedale)
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin


Gregory, Conal
Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick


Griffiths, Sir Eldon (Bury St E')
Mellor, Rt Hon David


Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)
Meyer, Sir Anthony


Grist, Ian
Miller, Sir Hal


Ground, Patrick
Mills, Iain


Grylls, Michael
Miscampbell, Norman


Hague, William
Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)


Hamilton, Rt Hon Archie
Mitchell, Sir David


Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)
Moate, Roger


Hampson, Dr Keith
Monro, Sir Hector


Hannam, John
Montgomery, Sir Fergus


Hargreaves, A. (B'ham H'll Gr')
Morris, M (N'hampton S)


Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)
Morrison, Rt Hon Sir Peter


Harris, David
Moss, Malcolm


Hawkins, Christopher
Moynihan, Hon Colin


Hayes, Jerry
Neale, Sir Gerrard


Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney
Nelson, Anthony


Hill, James
Neubert, Sir Michael





Nicholls, Patrick
Taylor, Ian (Esher)


Nicholson, David (Taunton)
Taylor, John M (Solihull)


Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)
Taylor, Sir Teddy


Norris, Steve
Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman


Oppenheim, Phillip
Temple-Morris, Peter


Page, Richard
Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)


Paice, James
Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)


Patten, Rt Hon Chris (Bath)
Thorne, Neil


Patten, Rt Hon John
Thornton, Malcolm


Pawsey, James
Tracey, Richard


Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth
Tredinnick, David


Porter, Barry (Wirral S)
Trippier, David


Porter, David (Waveney)
Trotter, Neville


Portillo, Michael
Twinn, Dr Ian


Powell, William (Corby)
Vaughan, Sir Gerard


Price, Sir David
Waldegrave, Rt Hon William


Raffan, Keith
Walden, George


Raison, Rt Hon Sir Timothy
Waller, Gary


Redwood, John
Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)


Rhodes James, Sir Robert
Warren, Kenneth


Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas
Watts, John


Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn
Wheeler, Sir John


Ryder, Rt Hon Richard
Whitney, Ray


Sackville, Hon Tom
Widdecombe, Ann


Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas
Wiggin, Jerry


Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')
Wilkinson, John


Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)
Winterton, Mrs Ann


Shersby, Michael
Winterton, Nicholas


Skeet, Sir Trevor
Wolfson, Mark


Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)
Wood, Timothy


Speller, Tony
Yeo, Tim


Squire, Robin
Young, Sir George (Acton)


Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John



Stevens, Lewis
Tellers for the Noes:


Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)
Mr. Nicholas Baker and Mr. Irvine Patrick.


Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)



Sumberg, David

Question accordingly negatived.

Bill accordingly committed to a Standing Committee.

EDUCATION (SCHOOLS) BILL [MONEY]

Queen's Recommendation having been signified —

Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Education (Schools) Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of —

(a) any sums payable under the Act in respect of the office and functions of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools for England and the office and functions of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools for Wales;
(b) any other expenses incurred by the Secretary of State under the Act; and 
(c) any increase attributable to the Act in sums payable out of money provided by Parliament under any other Act.—[Mr. Kirkhope.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,

That, at the sitting tomorrow, the Motion in the name of the Prime Minister relating to European Community: The Inter-Governmental Conferences may, notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted business), be proceeded with, though opposed, until Midnight.—[Mr. Kirkhope.]

Trunk Roads (Leicestershire)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Kirkhope.]

Sir John Farr: I am most grateful to have the opportunity to develop once again on the Adjournment the problems associated with trunk roads in Leicestershire. I am especially grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for Roads and Traffic, who has paid particular attention to the problem over recent months to try to get things right.
As my hon. Friend may know, three problems concern us. The first is what is known as the EDDR—the eastern district distributor road. The second problem is the new proposed Leicester eastern bypass and the third, which concerns me very much, is one of the most important east-west roads in the county—the A427 which runs from Loughborough to Market Harborough.
The eastern district distributor road is part of the relief road system round the city of Leicester. My hon. Friend, who has been courteous and kind in meeting delegations led by me and by other hon. Members to discuss the problem, has pointed out from time to time that the scheme is the responsibility of the county council.
The county council started the EDDR almost 50 years ago and it is still not finished. My hon. Friend was kind enough to tell me in answer to a question on the third problem, asking him whether he would make the east-west A427 a trunk road, that it came under the county council's responsibility for bypasses. Yet in the 20 or so years during which we have been associated with processions and demonstrations about the A427, not a single bypass has been built.
The EDDR was planned and begun more than 50 years ago under the aegis of the county council. The House and the public at large are entitled to study the performance, or lack of it, of the county council in that respect after 50 years. From the results on the ground, it seems that there is a great deal left to be desired. At the present speed of work on the EDDR—when it is finished it will provide much relief for traffic going round the city—the road is unlikely to be completed this millenium. In other words, it is unlikely to be completed before the year 2000.
The part of the Leicester relief road known as the SDDR—the southern district distributor road—is already discharging traffic on to the A6 at Oadby, a borough in my constituency, to the south of the city. In fact, the SDDR, upon which work has progressed well and speedily—it is all part of the relief road system round the city—has started to discharge traffic at a great rate on to the A6 at Oadby, which is seeking to percolate further south on the A6 or further east towards the A47.
When the traffic reaches the end of the SDDR at Oadby, there is nowhere else for it to go. As far as I can see, there is not likely to be anywhere for it to go for the next five or 10 years, except east on the A47 or south on the A6. There is no connecting link. Part of the EDDR is missing and that leaves a gap of two or three miles. As I have said, that stretch of road is not likely to be completed this millenium.
Most of my constituents find it amazing that that part of the road is missing, given that it is a planned and agreed eastern relief road for city traffic. I say planned and agreed, because, as my hon. Friend the Minister knows, more than

one public inquiry has taken place and the go-ahead has been given after all the proper formalities have been gone through. The EDDR, which is causing so much concern among my constituents, is the last piece of the Leicester ring road. Nine tenths of the Leicester ring road is finished and has been for some years. But the remaining tenth, on the eastern side of the city, running from Humberstone to the A6 at Oadby is still held up.
My hon. Friends and I feel justified in asking for a special debate to call attention to the ridiculous fact that, at Humberstone, which is part of the EDDR route, a mile of new road costing £1·5 million has stood finished and unopened for over a year, while the county and city councils argue about a proposed route by the side of the clinic on Scraptoft lane through a recreation area which happens to be owned by the city council. Meanwhile, the sealed-off stretch is being vandalised while it stands idle.
I find it extraordinary that the EDDR, planned for over 50 years, has been blocked by the city council. The council built 120 new houses on Goodwood road, which, in my view, should be demolished forthwith. Many people feel that that constituted a deliberate attempt by the city council to block Goodwood road, even though the council knew that it was part of the long-planned eastern relief road. That was an ill-advised planning decision by the city council, and questions could well be asked about the considerable waste of public money involved in building the new houses in Goodwood road.
Most Conservatives in the county, and many in the city, feel that the EDDR must go ahead, and must still follow the Goodwood road route, even if the houses there have to be soundproofed. Colchester road is also part of the planned route: it is already dual carriageway and presents no problems.
As I said a moment ago, I have carefully considered the problems that I have tried to outline tonight. I have written to my hon. Friend the Minister and recently he was kind enough to meet a delegation of Conservative Leicestershire county councillors, Oadby and Wigston borough councillors and Harborough district councillors. The united view of the delegation was that the EDDR must forge ahead on the agreed route along Goodwood road soon and on the planned route to the A6 to relieve traffic at Oadby.
When we raised those points at the meeting, the Minister made the perfectly valid point that the responsibility for the EDDR was not his. He said that it was the responsibility of the county council. However, the county council's engineer said that, while the council is acting as the Department's agent, no money can be spent on speeding up the EDDR without the Minister's specific consent. Some of us hope tonight to persuade the Minister that the county council should be authorised to speed up completion of the EDDR before the most unimaginable chaos occurs in Oadby in my constituency.
My next point concerns the Leicester eastern bypass. I want to place on record my appreciation of the Minister's kind and careful attention to the views of the delegation consisting of Conservative county councillors, borough councillors and district councillors. One of the reasons for tonight's debate is to try to persuade my hon. Friend the Minister that the points raised by the delegation should at least be considered before the Leicester eastern bypass is proceeded with.
We were united when we asked the Minister why Leicestershire county council, Oadby and Wigston


borough council and Harborough district council were not consulted. None of them was informed about the bypass. Even hon. Members were not asked for an opinion. That is regrettable, because if the Minister had taken the trouble to consult some of his colleagues in the House, he would have been told not to hurry over the bypass.
A solution is being sought today to a problem that many of us feel will not arise until the end of the century provided that the link—the EDDR—is made to work. It is essential to get that working like a clock and if that is achieved, the need for an eastern bypass will recede into the mists of next century. There is no hurry. The EDDR should be sorted out and a much more relaxed programme for an eastern bypass could then be adopted.
Another important point that I raised with the Minister when we met him—it was a point of which I should have given him notice—continues to recur relates to the name of the consultants that he has appointed for the new Leicester eastern bypass. We raised that subject at the meeting at the Department the other day. We said that we were unhappy with Travers Morgan, which had been appointed as agent for the Leicester eastern bypass, as it was the agent employed by the Co-operative Wholesale Society for its Stretton Magna scheme, which involves urbanising up to 5,000 acres in my constituency near Oadby with golf courses, business parks—the lot.
That organisation certainly was engaged in a study at the request of the CWS. Of course, the CWS farms to a great degree in Leicestershire. Travers Morgan, at the time of the submission of the CWS project a year or two ago, did the work for the CWS proposed link road, which it was going to throw in as a sweetener, between the A47 and the A6.
So far, I have been on ground which the Minister cannot challenge, because I am quite exact in my information. However, there is a question mark over the impartiality of Travis Morgan. If Travis Morgan had already done a good deal of the work for the proposed Leicester eastern bypass, as employee and having been paid a fee by the CWS to do the work only a year or two ago, surely it was able to use that recently acquired knowledge to submit to the Department a tender which was probably unfairly competitive because the organisation had already done a great deal of the ground work as a paid agent of the CWS.
The House is entitled to know the actual tender figures for the new Leicester eastern bypass and by how much did Travers Morgan win the contract. If the gap was large, did it represent best practice? With that organisation's previous knowledge, paid for by the CWS, it would seem that, to put it mildly, that was, questionable. As my hon. Friend the Minister knows, in such matters of public concern, everything must be seen to be absolutely above board.
I have been asked about the presence of Travers Morgan in preparing for the Minister's Department a scheme for much of the work which it had already carried out. When Travers Morgan quoted, were the other tendering companies aware of Travers Morgan's previous involvement? What would their feelings be? Can my hon. Friend the Minister assure me that they were informed, as they should have been, in the public interest? If they were not informed and if there was anything—I will not say

"underhand"; not as open as it should have been—would not it be best, to restore public confidence to the issue, for Travers Morgan to be dropped as consultants for the Leicester eastern bypass and for fresh consultants to be appointed?
The A427 from Lutterworth to Market Harborough is also a county council road. Quite rightly, in answer to questions that I have tabled in the past couple of weeks, my hon. Friend the Minister has said that he is not responsible and that it is a matter for the county council. The county council has again written to me to say that, as far as Leicester is concerned, only three bypasses can be funded annually in the county, simply because the Minister quite properly keeps his fingers on the till. Three bypasses a year in Leicestershire means that plans for bypasses that are badly needed on the A427 at towns such as Theddingworth fade away into the dim and distant future.
The A427 runs from Lutterworth to Market Harborough. Only recently there was a march by protesters along the whole length of the road. Some had endearing messages for me and some had not so endearing messages for the Government. It is all recorded on film. The A427 is an important little road. It is the main southern east-west road running through the county. The whole lot needs improving.

Mr. Michael Latham: Hear, hear.

Sir John Farr: I am glad to have the support of my hon. Friend, who knows the road well. It aggravated the people who were marching the other day that, over 15 years ago, Leicestershire county council agreed a bypass plan for Theddingworth. The plan was about to go ahead. Land was acquired. The scheme had been approved, but it was suddenly dropped like a hot potato because the council had heard that a road called the A1-M1 link road was due to be built in another county.
The county council lost interest in improving the A427 in any manner. Many of us feel that that is a shoddy way to treat people who have the most terrible problems. Villages are almost snuffed out by articulated vehicles every day. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to examine once again the problem of the A427 at Theddingworth. It is a strategic road. Will he authorise, or instruct the county council to authorise, the early commencement of a bypass for Theddingworth and one or two other communities?

The Minister for Roads and Traffic (Mr. Christopher Chope): It is with considerable diffidence that I respond to an Adjournment debate initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir John Farr), who has served his area of Leicestershire for more than 20 years with such distinction. He is an expert, if ever there was one, on roads and other matters in Leicestershire.
I agree wholeheartedly that the Leicester eastern distributor road is a cause of great frustration. The road has not yet been completed and the prospect of its being completed soon are not nearly as good as we would wish. The city of Leicester has developed on a fairly conventional pattern, with main radial roads feeding to business and employment areas in the centre. In recent years, the county council has developed inner and outer orbital routes to distribute traffic around the city. Both the


central relief road and the completed sections of the outer district distributor road have been funded with the help of 50 per cent. transport supplementary grant.
As my hon. Friend says, three quarters of the outer distributor road is now complete. Two sections remain to be completed. The A46–A47 link was accepted for TSG in 1986–87. The first western stage was completed in December 1989. The remainder of the scheme has planning permission, but orders are required for alterations to side roads and accesses and for compulsory purchase. The orders were published in March 1990 and the public inquiry was originally programmed for this summer.
Land will be acquired principally from the Leicester clinic and public open space in the control of Leicester city council. Negotiations have been proceeding with both. The city council previously showed an unwillingness to take the land out of public open space, possibly to frustrate the road scheme, although recently it apparently reluctantly agreed to support the scheme, subject to conditions. As my hon. Friend said, part of the completed first stage is not yet open to traffic and is subject to vandalism.
I am afraid to say that it is a sorry saga and an example of the worst conflicts that arise between a city and a county council which do not act together in the interests of the local citizens.
The Leicester eastern distributor road was originally planned back in the 1930s. There was land reservation for a dual carriageway and in the late 1960s Leicester city council—then the highway authority—built houses on the reservation for the second highway.
Recent traffic studies justify the need for greater traffic capacity than that provided by a single carriageway, but Leicester city council has recently resolved to reject the option that would have required extensive property demolition, in favour of a more modest improvement of an existing road.
The Government have responsibility for trunk roads and motorways and allocate resources, under the transport supplementary grant system, for local authority schemes. We often express our views on what we would like to happen, but we do not have the ability to require local authorities to take particular courses of action.
As I said in an earlier debate, mentioned by the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz), and as I have already told my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough in meetings, it seems totally illogical that the distributor road has not been completed, and I hope that it soon will be. Certainly, any suggestion that it cannot be completed because of the Government's reluctance to give it funding is totally mischievous. It is included in Leicestershire county council's transport planning programme for construction in 1993, 1994 and 1995, and has good economic justifications.
Obviously at the moment grant for 1993 only has been applied for. If the county council thought that it could start work in 1992, it would have put it in the programme submission that is currently under consideration. If the council still thought that it could start work in 1992, it might not be too late for it to propose an amendment to

the submission, although time is extremely short, because we will be announcing the final determination of the allocations in December.
Any suggestion that the Government are holding up the scheme is totally mischievous and without foundation. The Government would be pleased for the scheme to proceed and have always made it clear that it would probably qualify for transport supplementary grant.
I also refer to the A427. I know that my hon. Friend has campaigned for a long time for an improvement to that corridor; and, as he says, again that is not a direct responsibility of the Department of Transport. However, I hope that he will be pleased today—not only for himself, but for his constituents—to know that contracts 2 and 3 on the M1–A 1 link road have been awarded to Tarmac Construction. It is a two-year contract with a value approaching £36 million and is a further major investment in the roads infrastructure in Leicestershire.
That road will give tremendous relief to people living alongside the A427. Obviously, it is not as good a solution as a bypass and no doubt that will still be a priority for the local authority. However, I hope that, by getting much of the through traffic off the A427 with the M1–A 1 link, it will bring the relief that my hon. Friend seeks.
As regards the Leicester eastern bypass, that scheme was put into the roads programme in May 1989, in the "Roads for Prosperity" White Paper. Its planning and design are at a very early stage, with consultants only recently appointed to undertake initial design work. The next key event for the scheme will be a public consultation, which is planned to take place in 1993. The Leicester eastern bypass is thought to be an important strategic route, because it will bring relief to that side of Leicester and will complement the western bypass, work on which is expected to begin next year.
The A46–A6 link, which is effectively the Leicester eastern bypass, was introduced into the programme because it was thought that it would be able to provide continuity in the trunk road network for long distance north-west to south-east traffic. I know that my hon. Friend has concerns about that and about the consultants chosen after competitive tender to be responsible for its design. On the latter point, that was after a competition in which Travers Morgan One was successful. I cannot give my hon. Friend the details of exactly the amount by which it was more successful than any other tenderer. I hope that he will accept that the tendering carried out by the Department of Transport is purely objective.
It is true to say that these are the same consultants who have been advising us on the Leicester western bypass. They are highly esteemed and wholly professional. I ask my hon. Friend to accept that they will look at the scheme objectively and will take into account all the views of the local people which will be expressed during the consultation period that will precede the announcement of any preferred route. It is still possible, even now, if everybody says that they do not need the bypass after all, that the Government may withdraw it from their programme. It would be premature to take such a decision tonight.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at five minutes to Eleven o'clock.